


Unto Starlight

by AndromedaPrime



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Cyberverse
Genre: Background Relationships, M/M, Mech Preg, Pre-War, Secret Children, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Transformer Sparklings, Wartime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2019-11-15 09:31:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 45,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18070823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndromedaPrime/pseuds/AndromedaPrime
Summary: Megatron and Optimus discuss their future on one starlit night, focusing on one topic in particular: a sparkling of their own, one that they could give everything to. The three of them, in a peaceful Cybertron.Their first mistake was thinking Cybertron could achieve peace.Their second mistake was believing that they would continue on, together.





	1. A Long While

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a work in progress since just before the season one finale of Cyberverse aired. Not a whole lot about the background of the war was revealed, so I've imparted most of the aspects of pre-war Cybertron onto this fic from Aligned and IDW. 
> 
> The "background relationship" tag is also there for some bits of Windblade/Bumblebee that will pop up here and there in the fic, mostly in the middle chapter and possibly the final one. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I will do my best to get the second one written, edited, and posted before too long~
> 
>  **Edit 03/16/2019:** I have posted this chapter to [my Dreamwidth](https://andromedaprime.dreamwidth.org/3315.html) as well.

The stars outside the window paled in comparison to Optimus’s optics, he thought, as he stroked the other mech’s faceplates. The most refined energon wasn’t as smooth and blemish-free as the surface of the data clerk’s face.

Optimus stirred next to him, and then opened his optics. A moment of silence passed between them, and then Optimus smiled and the blue glow of his optics softened.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“If I feel anything touching my faceplates,” Optimus replied, sitting up in berth, the hydraulics in his systems making noise as he did so, “I will wake up. You should know by now that I’m a very light recharger.”

Megatron sat up in berth as well. “I know. It’s a shame - I can’t admire your features without you waking up and insisting that I’m merely flattering you.”

Optimus smiled and ducked his helm down a little bit. “Well then, admit it. You are just flattering me.”

“Why would you have this decrepit gladiator when a beautiful mech such as yours could get any bot on this planet?”

“Perhaps decrepit gladiators are my preferred type of mech,” Optimus said, slag-eating grin on his faceplates.

Megatron said nothing for a moment, stunned slightly at how easily the reply came, and Optimus took that moment to lean in and kiss him gently on his lipplates. He could never resist how light said kisses felt, and a low rumble emanated from his chassis as Megatron wrapped an arm around Optimus and rolled on top of him. The data clerk laughed softly once they ceased their kiss, lipplates parting from one another.

“I should almost be offended that you didn’t tell me that I am not a decrepit gladiator.”

Optimus’s expression changed, and the data clerk gave him a flat look. “You know it’s the truth. You wouldn’t be this level of decrepit if you’d been able to gain access to a medic during the earlier stages of your life.”

“Medics were luxuries that none of us could afford.”

“Yet here I am, with a medic as my best friend, and I keep telling you,” Megatron felt the back of Optimus’s servo lightly thunk against his chassis, “to let me schedule you for an examination.”

“Hmph,” Megatron said. “So you can spend your credits for your friend to tell me something I already know? That my limbs will need replacing at some point, and that my systems can’t handle high-grade because I only ever knew low-grade?”

“So he can fix what he can fix and tell you how to take care of yourself, even keeping in mind what you do in the arena.”

“Other medics have tried their best.”

Optimus puffed out his chassis in a little bit of pride, and Megatron thought about how admirable it was that his chosen other was so proud of the achievements of his friends, almost as if they were his own sparklings. “I believe Ratchet may be able to suggest a few things that your other medics may not have thought of.”

Megatron gave a thoughtful hum as he laid back down and gently tugged Optimus so the red and blue mech lay down against him. The data clerk sighed contentedly as he laid his helm atop the gladiator’s chassis. Megatron raised his servo and gently stroked along the edges of the other bot’s helm antennae.

“I will think about it,” Megatron finally answered. “But I won’t make any promises.”

Optimus let out a soft ex-vent and then a little noise of longing when Megatron pulled his servo away. Bright blue optics stared mournfully at him, and Megatron had to chuckle.

“Fine. I know I can’t control what you do.”

“As I can’t control what you do, Optimus.” Megatron looked at the ceiling and closed his optics. “I have a question for you.”

“Hmm?”

“I was thinking about our future. I wondered,” the gladiator opened his optics and then turned his helm to look at Optimus, “would you think about having sparklings?”

Megatron didn’t miss how the soft noise of Optimus’s systems stalled completely. It stayed silent for a few moments, and then it started up again just as Optimus cast his glance toward the ceiling and ex-vented harshly. “I would. But after our dream for a free and equal Cybertron is realized.” The data clerk turned his helm so his gaze met Megatron’s. “I don’t want to bring a sparkling into this conflict we’ve been having.”

That was news to Megatron. He arched an optic ridge. “What conflict?”

“The cause you’ve been fighting for. Freeing us from the bonds of oppression from the powers that be,” Optimus replied.

Oh. That. It wasn’t that Megatron had forgotten - far from it, to be exact. He snorted and said, “It’s not like we are engaged in a physical war, Optimus. Our sparkling would not be in immediate danger. If this were a fight, with armies battling one another, then of course I would understand. As a matter of fact I wouldn’t have even brought it up in the first place.”

“It might not be a war,” Optimus countered. Megatron didn’t miss the terseness creeping into the other mech’s voice as he continued, “but it is still an environment that I’d imagine bitlets would not appreciate being brought into.”

“It won’t be as if their lives would be on the line, like mine is every time I step into that arena.”

“By association, their lives will be.” Optimus placed his servo over one of his, and Megatron looked down at their joined hands before looking back up to pleading optics. “Please. _Please_ understand, Megatron. I want to wait. I am happy to carry. And in fact I have thought about it,” the data clerk said softly. “But I would not be happy to carry at this point in time. You… do not have to be a creator right now to know that it is a major life change to go through.”

Megatron wanted to respond with something, but Optimus had put his pede down. He sighed and then looked away for a moment.

“I envision having a sparkling with you. I don’t believe I could have it in myself to do more than that. But I want our sparkling to grow up with both creators able to give them the attention they need. The cause we’re fighting for is important, but I know how this will work. I will go off to the side to tend to them, and you will throw yourself entirely into this.”

The gladiator looked back at Optimus as the data clerk continued, “I feel we’d be doing our sparkling a disservice.”

Truthfully? Megatron had thought about that. How he wanted a sparkling with his chosen mate more than anything. The cause he fought for was important, yes - but he had others that he could rely on to help him. Soundwave was always trustworthy, and Shockwave seemed to work without ceasing. He knew they would not counter him if he asked for more of their assistance so he could tend to his mate and their sparkling.

When he wanted to counter, however, he saw the light of determination in Optimus’s optics - and he knew he wouldn’t win. He couldn’t carry, as being thrust into the Pits had stripped him of that ability, but even in the instance that he still could - he would only have done so if Optimus weren’t willing or able to. It would all be up to the data clerk’s timing, and he had no influence over that.

Megatron finally gave a sigh of defeat and nodded. “Fine. I understand your concerns and I know that there’s nothing I can do to change your mind about this.”

Both mechs went quiet, the only sound in the room being their systems working at a gentle pace. For now, all Megatron knew he could do was take comfort and joy in the fact that he and his chosen partner were on the same path regarding a future together - how he would have loathed to have to find out they differed in such an aspect.

The image of both Optimus and himself with a sparkling of their own, a little being they both created from nothing more than their love for one another, made his spark warm. He knew Optimus would be the most attentive and loving carrier, and how much he wanted to see the interactions that Optimus would have with their sparkling.

Something gentle touched his faceplates, and he turned his helm to see that Optimus had reached one of his servos out, tips of his digits skimming along Megatron’s faceplate. “For what it might be worth,” he said, smiling gently, “I know you will be a fantastic sire when we eventually realize our dream of a sparkling.”

The gladiator couldn’t resist bringing the data clerk in for yet another kiss. Truthfully, it meant the universe to him.

.-.-.

Whenever Megatron had to leave before he woke, he would make sure to leave a little note apologizing for the early departure. Not waking up next to his beloved made Optimus a little bit sad, he admitted, but there was some small comfort found in the fact that Megatron took an extra klik to leave that note and to always sign it off with an affirmation of love.

Optimus tucked the note he’d found in berth with him away and sat up on the edge, pedes touching the floor as he adjusted his optics to the amount of light streaming through the window. It was not his solar cycle off from his work, but it was the solar cycle that he could go in a bit later if he wanted, given that he made up that time later in the decacycle. He fetched his morning energon from the storage closet in the next room and returned to his berth, sitting on it again as he sipped at it.

Last night’s conversation ran through his processor - he was open about his relief that Megatron wanted a sparkling as well, but there was the issue of timing. There was little control that one had over their existence, and no control over what circumstances they were brought into as newsparks.

The dystopic environment that he and Megatron had onlined in had been far worse than it had been now. Some movement in classes was allowed, nor were there stations along every street for patrollers to wrangle dissidents. Megatron’s rallies had been allowed to exist without pushback or any violence come upon the attendants.

Still, he did worry. Optimus knew that they had a lot more to do before a true reform of Cybertron could be achieved. Luck had played in their favor so far, but there would be a time it could run out. One solar cycle, he or Megatron - or both - could find themselves in far more trouble that they’d bargained for. And where would that leave any hypothetical sparkling born to them?

On the other servo, anything could happen to them even after the reform, once all the political endeavours were behind both of them. Optimus found his tanks churning with displeasure at the idea and he closed his optics and sighed.

Yes. It would be very difficult to make sure that an environment was wholly perfect for a sparkling to come into.

Megatron’s creators had not been together - a single carrier had raised him and they lacked adequate housing and energon at times. The love had been there, until Megatron’s carrier had gone offline far too soon, leaving Megatron alone.

There it was - the thought of his beloved being a scared and lonely bitlet. How he didn’t want that to happen to their own offspring.

His processor countered and pointed out that if there were two of them, the chances of such a thing happening would be far, far less.

“Do I really want this?” Optimus asked aloud, to himself, not looking for anyone to answer - not that they could have. He opened his optics and looked at the photo capture across the way, on the wall - Megatron and himself at the most recent speech his beloved had given. A future for all Cybertronians, not just for a select few.

He wanted this. Megatron wanted this. There was no question about giving the sparkling everything they would need - they would be more than able to.

Perhaps… no, he _was_ absolutely amenable to moving up the timeline he’d imposed last night. Optimus brought the cube to his lipplates and smiled into it.

Megatron, himself, and a bitlet. A Cybertron that Megatron and he had strove for, one that was equal and peaceful. The thought made his spark flutter.

.-.-.

The alarm at his workstation trilled quietly at him, rousing him from his hyper-focused state to let him know that his shift was over. Optimus saved his work and then logged out of the computer terminal, walking quickly to the exit on the other end of the Hall of Records.

If he were late, Ratchet would have a fresh arsenal of tools at his disposal to launch at him. The medic was also a fluent speaker of cursing, and almost every time that Optimus was a little late to an appointment, he learned a new word that he most definitely could not use in a professional environment - not while he answered to Alpha Trion, at least.

Ratchet answered only to himself. If anyone took issue with his language, his response was to employ more obscenities.

Optimus pressed the palm of his servo against the security scanner, which flipped from shining yellow to blue as it approved him to leave the Hall.

The sun had not yet set on Cybertron, but it was getting quite close to it, bathing Iacon in twilight. As a result, some of the windows in the edifices surrounding him began to glow as the occupants turned on other light sources. Optimus slowed down in his stroll and cast his gaze upwards and wondered how twilight in Iacon looked from the sky.

Ratchet’s clinic was closed, had been for a klik judging by the current time, but the perk of having said medic as your best friend was that Optimus knew the passcode to the back entrance. He made his way in and toward the end of the hallway, the movement prompting the lights to shine a little brighter.

At the final room was the medic. Ratchet gave one of his well-known gruff greetings but followed it up with a half-grin and gave the empty seat a tap. “Good. You learned being pals with me doesn’t excuse you from any late arrival penalties.”

“Nor will it save me from  your wrath and your arsenal of wrenches,” Optimus replied with a full grin on his faceplates as he heeded Ratchet’s gesture and sat down across from the medic.

“No one’s safe, not even you. So what’s goin’ on? Better be important, otherwise you’re owing me two drinks at Maccadam’s and not just one.”

Optimus had rehearsed how he would have asked that question, but in that moment he found that his usual well-spoken manner retreated into some little corner of his personality where his extroverted tendencies went to die. He cleared his vocalizer and stared down at the floor, focusing very intently on his pedes as his did so.

“Fragger, get on with it.”

Well, there was no time like the present moment. Optimus looked up, and put on his best serious face. “Ratchet, if I were to carry a sparkling, what issues would I need to be aware of?”

If the expression on Ratchet’s faceplates had been anything to go by, the medic had been expecting something very different. Optimus had to wonder what the mental list in Ratchet’s processor had been.

Ratchet reset his vocalizer, paused for a moment, and then replied. “Why are you asking?”

“Megatron and I recently discussed having a sparkling of our own. I told him that I would like to wait. The more I think about it, however,” he looked down at his servos joined on his lap and sighed before continuing, “I realize that I would not mind carrying now. He and I aren’t the youngest of mechs.”

“Watch it, protoform,” Ratchet replied, and Optimus moved out of the way but still found himself on the receiving end of a wrench poking his chassis. “I’m a lot older than your decrepit old gladiator is.”

“There was no offense meant,” Optimus laughed softly. “In the grand scheme of the universe, i know we are not old, but I simply wonder what carrying a sparkling at my age might entail.”

Ratchet regarded him with a look comprised of narrowed optics and a helm slowly lifting up, as if wondering whether to say something, and if so, how exactly to say it.

“Well, you're not old like me, and at this point I think even I could carry a bit without much problem. I'm kind of curious. Did that slagger talk you into one right now?”

Optimus gave the medic a look. “He did not. I’ve wanted one of my own for a long while. I was simply waiting to see whom I would have one with, and to wait for the proper timing.”

Ratchet crossed his arms over his chassis and tilted his helm at him. “Didn’t you comment once that you would want to wait until after your role in Megatron’s politics is done, and you and he can settle down?”

“Megatron’s call for action has been going well thus far.” Optimus pursed his lipplates and sighed. “I believe I would be okay to start trying with him.”

“Well, I’m not giving you anything to help you out,” Ratchet groused, lightly slapping his servos on either side of the data clerk and giving him a stern look, “until you look me in my optics and tell me you really want to do this and that you know what you’re fraggin’ getting into..”

When faced with that ultimatum, Optimus found it easy to decide what he really wanted. He cocked his helm slightly to the side and looked Ratchet in his optics. “I want to try for a sparkling with my partner, and I am aware of the risks that come with this. I still want it.”

He didn’t miss how Ratchet narrowed his optics very slightly. After a moment, the medic nodded once and then stood up. “I’ve got a treatment you can take right now to start helping your frame get ready. Also makes it a little easier to spark up.” Ratchet grinned a little wickedly. “Couple of bots I know got sparked the very decacycle they started trying for a bitlet.”

Oh. Oh Primus. Within a decacycle?

No, there was no room for doubting now. He had committed himself to this. Optimus was still afraid of that little grin that Ratchet had on his faceplates, but he nodded and stood up, following Ratchet out of the room they’d both been in. The dimmed lights in the hallway brightened with their movement as Ratchet led Optimus to an examination room. Optimus dutifully sat on the medical berth and ran his digits over the various buttons on the side, below the layer of padding.

Ratchet cleared his vocalizer, grabbing Optimus’s attention. A datapad had appeared in his servo.

“Age and location of your onlining?”

Optimus gave Ratchet a look. Seriously? He knew that he’d given Ratchet far more information about himself than the average bot might have given any other of their best friends.

“Hey,” the medic replied defensively, “gotta ask. Can’t just make presumptions.”

“That is a valid point,” Optimus reached for the datapad, and after a bit of tug-of-war and another stern look that he leveled at his friend, he took it into both of his servos and looked at the information it was requiring.

Age, location of onlining, relationship with parental figures if any, romantic relationships. Oh how Optimus could go on about his relationship with Megatron, but for brevity’s sake he wrote a few sentences and then came to the next question.

Well, more like statement. It was just a paragraph letting him know what he’d already thought through - what a sparkling needed and imploring the signer to realize what they were going to get themselves into.

He’d done enough of that already.

He acknowledged that he’d read the statement and handed the datapad back to Ratchet, who took it and read it over. The medic nodded and then produced something from his subspace.

Primus. Of course a needle was involved. It was always the needles. Doing his best to ignore the little tingles of apprehension shooting up his spinal strut, Optimus closed his optics and stretched his arm out. “Just get it over with.”

Ratchet made a noise that Optimus didn’t hear very often as he felt the thin, sharp point slip between two plates of armor on his arm and stick into his protoform. The injection site felt slightly cold for a moment, and then it disappeared.

“How long does it take for me to feel the effects?” Optimus asked as Ratchet withdrew the needle.

The medic tossed the syringe into a waste receptacle. “Takes effect pretty quickly. Some bots get sparked within a decacycle, but some still take a long while.”

“Define “long while” please.”

“Still took one mech a full stellar cycle to get sparked. Came to me after two stellar cycles of trying. Without this, he might not have gotten sparked at all.”

Optimus had to give Ratchet that point. He found the injection site and pressed down on the armor plates to dull the leftover stinging that was still buzzing around there.

“So are you gonna tell him? That you’re gonna start taking these things to help speed things up?”

“I plan on it. Thank you for the reminder,” Optimus said softly, closing his optics again as he opened his communication link and sent a message to the gladiator.

_::Please accompany me tonight. I have something I would like to discuss with you.::_


	2. The Catalysts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Dreamwidth Link](https://andromedaprime.dreamwidth.org/3573.html)

The moment he walked into Optimus’s abode, beckoned by the message he’d received, and overall tiredness from the solar cycle, Megatron had been all but tackled by the other mech and pushed towards the berthroom. His frame was shoved onto the berth, frame covering his, and his lipplates seized. He chuckled and indulged his chosen mate, kissing back fervently, his servos roaming up and down the length of Optimus’s arms.

The other mech’s electromagnetic field was, simply put, in a bit of a frenzy, and Megatron wondered exactly what had brought this flurry of activity on the data clerk. He nipped at Optimus’s lower lipplate, and smirked at the moan that the other mech gave.

“What has gotten into you? I never would have expected a greeting such as this.”

His words seemed to calm the other mech down slightly, and Optimus pulled back with a sigh and laid his helm on a mesh cushion, looking at Megatron with dimmed blue optics. “I went to see Ratchet today.”

Megatron hummed appreciatively as he looked at Optimus through lidded optics and smiled. “What did you go to him for?”

Optimus reached over and his digits traced nonsensical patterns on Megatron’s arm. “I asked him about a few things, and then I also asked him to run a few examinations on me.”

That gave the silver-plated mech a little bit of pause - had Optimus told him recently that he had been ill? If so, he was slightly upset at himself for forgetting such information. He cleared his vocalizer, but it seemed that Optimus had seen the confused look on his faceplates as the file clerk smiled back at him. “I told him about the conversation that we had lately.”

Megatron was about to ask what conversation in particular, but out of the corner of his optics he noticed Optimus place his servo on his middle, and then it clicked. There was no way he could be sparked of yet, Megatron knew. It had only happened the previous night cycle, and he had not expected that Optimus might change his mind so soon. He cleared his vocalizer. “What did Ratchet tell you?”

The other mech drew an expression on his faceplates that showed that he was mulling over his words very carefully, and after a few moments of silence he spoke. “I simply told him that, after discussing this with you a bit at length, that I felt that I am ready. As such, I’m willing to try this new journey with you.”

He stared at the data clerk for a few nanokliks, and when the full impact of what Optimus said hit him, Megatron seized Optimus’s lipplates in a hungry kiss. He pressing their helms closer as he wound one servo around the other mech and gripped the back of his head.

Creators. They would get a chance to be creators.

Optimus moaned into his mouth and arched his hips, their pelvic spans meeting. Megatron hissed between his dentae and pulled back, digits trailing between their frames and southward. “Are you certain?”

The look that Optimus gave him was somewhere between withering and seductive, but the data clerk gave an emphatic nod and leaned forward, kissing him again. “I am quite certain, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked what I asked, nor would I have requested that Ratchet prescribe some treatments for my frame.”

“And what do these treatments do?”

A salacious smirk came over the red and blue mech’s faceplates as he leaned closer to Megatron’s audio receptor. “These treatments increase our chances of conception, and prepare my frame for creating and carrying a sparkling.” Then, after a moment of silence, he lowered his voice and said, “I’ve taken the dosage for this cycle.”

The thought of it, the thought of Optimus soft and round with sparkling, and knowing he was the reason for that, made Megatron’s engine rev a little harder and louder than usual. He growled, the sound originating from deep within his chassis, and he kissed all over Optimus’s beautiful face. The data clerk laughed a little bit. “Now, come on,” Optimus continued, pressing his frame against Megatron’s, expression heated in the best of ways. “You and I both want a sparkling. We have our work cut out for us.”

.-.-.

The other mech pushed him into the berth, growling lowly, the sound shooting something pleasant up through Optimus’s frame as the data clerk watched Megatron trail his way down, settling between his thighs and parting them. A servo came to rest over his interface panel, a digit tapping at the warming metal cover, and Optimus obliged his mate by snapping it open. He shuddered slightly at the chill in the room passing over the warm wetness of his valve, calipers clenching down on cold, empty air.

He’d done it many times before, but the hunger in Megatron’s optics as he ravished all of Optimus’s frame with his gaze sent shivers up his spinal strut like the first time they’d done this. Megatron settled between his legs and swiped a thumb over the anterior node, eliciting a sharp inhale from Optimus.

Oh, he was much more alight than he’d previously realized.

Through the haze that was beginning to cloud his processor, he realized that Megatron had dipped his helm down, and those strong servos parted his legs further as he felt something much more flexible than a digit press against his anterior node.

Megatron’s glossa cradling his pulsing node made him whimper and he raised a servo to his mouth, biting down on one digit to muffle the noise. He shifted his position on the berth and arched his hips up into Megatron’s face, vents blowing out a little bit of hot air. Just as he was about to tell the other mech to get a move on, Megatron moved his glossa to swipe up the length of his swollen valve folds before working his way into his valve.

The sensors along his valve lit on fire and how Optimus loved that feeling of Megatron pressing his faceplates against his array, glossa and fingers working him thoroughly. He arched his back and moaned softly, intakes hitching as Megatron moved suddenly and grazed his dentae over his anterior node. Optimus reached down and grasped onto the other mech’s helm with one of his servos.

Megatron pushed his helm up into Optimus’s palm and purred, giving the valve folds a last kiss and the anterior node another light suck before moving so his frame covered Optimus’s and grabbed him up in a kiss again, the taste of heady lubricants passing between them.

“Come,” Optimus panted, pulling back a bit and grabbing Megatron, holding him against his frame and feeling the slide of the other mech’s spike on his valve folds. “In me, please.”

The stretch was always a pleasant burn that trickled through his circuitry, shooting up his spinal strut and into his processor. Optimus sighed in contentment as Megatron bottomed out, wrapping his legs around the other mech’s waist. Megatron tightened his grip on his hips and groaned, the sound coming from deep within his chassis as he rolled his hips slightly, pressing their arrays together.

“Come on,” Optimus managed to say, winding an arm around Megatron’s back and holding onto the berth with his free servo, smirking as he goaded the other mech on. “Frag me, harder, frag you.”

Megatron smirked back and seized not his lipplates, but his neck cables this time. Optimus moaned at the sensation, his spark yearning for the other mech’s life force, yearning for union as it threatened to burst out of his chassis

“You don’t know what you do to me, you beautiful mech,” Megatron whispered in Optimus’s audio when he was done lavishing attention on his neck. “Primus strike me where I stand, but I would be so happy to go with my last memory being that of your face.”

His spark sang in longing, love, libertine desires coursing through his being. Optimus rocked his hips on the spike sinking hard and fast into his frame, arching his back, rasping out his mate’s name.

“Megatron, please, please,” his pleas fell on his audio receptors, and mercifully the gladiator heard him as well. The silver mech adjusted the grip he had on his hips, angling them so that the slide of his spike brushed over more nodes, and oh how divine the feeling was. The lubricant slicking their frames made noises with each thrust and retreat, but neither mech paid it any mind as their processors focused only on the blissful sensations.

The feeling of that glorious and wonderful spike moving inside of him made Optimus moan with each stroke, arching his helm back and allowing himself rapture.

“Primus,” he gasped as Megatron hit a particularly deep-set node.

The gladiator chuckled. “That wasn’t the designation I hoped to hear,” he murmured. He slid out and then hilted himself again, prompting stars to appear in Optimus’s visual field. Optimus wrapped a servo around the back of Megatron’s helm, pulling him in for another kiss that turned into nipping at each other with dentae, and then gasps and groans as Megatron increased the pace.

Overload hit Megatron first, despite his obvious attempts to try and stave it off for as long as he possibly could. The gladiator slammed his hips against Optimus’s array and grunted as he reached his release, spike pulsing within the data clerk’s valve as rush after rush of transfluid flooded him. The surge of warmth proved to be Optimus’s undoing, as he gasped out loud and moaned, too caught up in bliss to care about the mess gathering at his valve and pooling beneath his aft.

Optimus came down from his high, gasping and panting, allowing his vents to blast the built up hot air out into the room as he tried to cool his frame. Megatron suddenly fell onto his frame, and Optimus choked out a laugh at how thoroughly debauched Megatron had to be if he’d lost control of his own strength.

The gladiator slurred out an apology, his optics still near-white from the force of his own overload, and he then slipped off of Optimus’s frame, coming to rest against the data clerk’s side. Optimus really couldn’t help the fit of laughter he fell into, thoroughly entertained.

“You fight in your matches and come away able to form coherent sentences, but this strikes you mute. Wonderful to know.”

From where Megatron’s faceplates were buried into his side, he heard and felt the gladiator’s voice rumble out something that sounded like “Hush.”

Laughter subsiding into a chuckle, Optimus reached over and stroked whatever bit of Megatron’s faceplates he could with his digits, feeling the other mech moan softly and press his helm into the gentle touch.

“So when will you know?”

Optimus smiled in response. “It will be a while yet. Likely at least a decacycle before Ratchet can give any sort of confirmation.”

The gladiator moved his helm, and a salacious look came over Megatron as he leaned in and kissed Optimus further. “Then perhaps a second attempt is in order. Merely to be certain of our results.”

The data clerk couldn’t hold back his laugh as he nodded against the other mech and lay back on the berth.

.-.-.

He tapped his favorite stylus against the surface of his desk, biting down on the soft mesh of his lipplates with his dentae as he focused intently on the stream of information coming across the screen. Well… he was attempting to focus. All he’d really been able to take in were mentions of his and Megatron’s revolutionary attempts to abolish the long-standing order of Cybertron.

And then there was something as well. Gossip columns speculating that Megatron was becoming overworked. He looked more sinister than he usually did. Optimus took issue with such a speculation, but he knew he had to be honest - where he saw a faithful sparkmate, others saw someone terrifying.

A ping sounded in his personal communication link. Optimus put a pause on his work and opened the message that had arrived.

_::You have been quiet today. Am I safe to assume that our project bore no results again?::_

It hurt Optimus a little bit, the way the question was worded. Though he knew Megatron meant no ill by it - at least he hoped he didn’t - the way it was worded made his spark sink as if he were a youngling being reprimanded.

This, Optimus thought a little acidly, was why he was the speech writer.

He composed a response.

_::Ratchet saw nothing this morning. I waited the appropriate amount of time to go back to him for a scan, but there was nothing more to report::_

After a few more moments, another message came through.

_::I was merely curious. You would usually message me to let me know::_

The data clerk sighed and wondered if he should respond. He decided against it for now - the hurt from seeing nothing this morning was still a little too fresh, no matter how often the scene had been repeated.

Ratchet had looked a little taken aback at the lack of results at this point in time. Almost a stellar cycle, Optimus realized as he looked at the chronometer set up on his work station. Almost a stellar cycle had passed since he’d begun the treatments to try and quicken the pace of conception. His friend had become flustered, frustrated, and apologized profusely for the lack of success.

As he thought about it, Optimus noticed the change in his own behavior as well as Megatron’s. As he preoccupied himself with the failure in this endeavour, Megatron had shown more interest in his campaign than anything else. The power of his words had drawn countless more towards their side of history, but there had been an interfactional split of sorts - those that claimed that Megatron’s hunger for power would soon overwhelm his true desire for equality amongst Cybertronians, and those that seemed to be perfectly content with the notion.

Optimus found himself of the first opinion. When he’d last spoken about it with Megatron, the mech had growled and stormed off to cool down. The next time they’d spoken, the subject was avoided.

The computer terminal beeped almost curiously at him, and he roused himself out of his fugue state to see that it was warning him that it was about to shut off due to inactivity. Clearing his vocalizer, Optimus tapped the screen and awakened it, setting about to his work once more.

He tried his best to put Megatron out of his processor, but found himself unable to. When the time came for him to log out of his shift, he frowned and compared his progress with the solar cycle prior, and the solar cycle before that. Less and less. He needed to address this, lest his productivity level drop even further.

When he left the Hall, he sent a message to Ratchet over their communication link. A klik later, the response came, and he headed for the clinic.

.-.-.

“Wait, let me make sure I’m getting this right. You don’t want to continue getting the treatments?”

“Yes. I…,” Optimus trailed off and parsed the words circling in his processor for a moment before continuing, “I feel like the lack of success may be for a reason.”

Ratchet tilted his helm to the side a minute fraction, a movement that may have been imperceptible for most mechs, but Optimus didn’t miss it. It was a clear indicator that the medic wanted a reason why. The data clerk cast his glance downward. “ He has become more distant and dare I say…” he sighed, remembering how Megatron had been upset when he’d used the word, but then cognizant of the fact that he was with a friend. “Power-hungry.”

A beat of silence passed between both mechs and Ratchet gave an emphatic nod. “Been feeling kind of the same way too. Just didn’t want to say anything, since you’re my friend. I figured you were keeping him in check.”

“I did my best. And I will continue to do so. However, it has been almost a stellar cycle. Nothing has worked. Perhaps this is for the best, that no sparkling came of our union. If I am to be honest, I’m not sure if our relationship will be much longer for this world.”

He saw the little look of alarm on Ratchet’s faceplates out of the corner of his optics. The medic nodded and then left the room with a low murmur that he’d be back very soon.

Optimus wrapped his arms around himself and stared at the captures and diagrams on the walls. Most of them showed artist renditions of the progression of a sparkling as it grew within the carrier, with others showing the differences between emergence methods. Another showed a table of genetic probability and how traits might emerge.

That one piqued his interest, and he stood up and stepped over, reading it very intently. A pair of grounders would almost always beget grounders, with a small chance of a flight-frame depending on their familial history. A pair of flight-frames would always beget a flight-frame. A grounder and flight-frame had equal chances of flight-frames, grounders, or a mutation where the sparkling could come out with two alternate modes as opposed to one.

He’d not taken notice of them in the other times he’d been in this room receiving his treatments. Now, his spark sank with a sensation of sadness, longing.

Ratchet bustled his way back in with a datapad gripped in his servos. When he handed it to Optimus, the data clerk realized it had been the original datapad he’d signed, stating that he wanted to pursue the treatments to help conceive.

“Further down the screen,” the medic sighed quietly. “Usually only gets signed once a bot gets sparked, but you can give your reasoning for stopping.”

Optimus pursed his lippates and signed on the line, confirming that he would no longer continue. On the next line, after some pause and thought, he wrote down that he no longer felt the need.

“I’m sorry. Was hoping they’d work on you. You’d be a great carrier, Optimus.”

“Please,” Optimus said a little bit more sharply than he’d intended. “Don’t make this even harder than it already feels for me.”

“Right. I’m sorry.”

.-.-.

The stars were shining overhelm as he made his way through sparse Iacon streets to his home. Optimus found a few constellations and held a servo out, tracing them with his digit as if the sky were a screen.

It was one of his favorite activities - watching the sky and seeing the stars move about. It was something he’d hoped to share with a sparkling of his own one night, where he would take them out to the mountains near Iacon and show them the constellations he could pick out.

He’d taken Megatron out there once, and the gladiator had seemed to like it well enough - but the shine in his mate’s optics was likely nothing compared to the wonder that a sparkling would have.

A familiar figure was waiting outside of his home, as he’d expected. Optimus gave the gladiator a wan smile in greeting as he unlocked the door and let the both of them in.

“Are you okay, Optimus?”

Of course he wasn’t. But he didn’t feel like getting in the nuances of his emotional state, and especially not with this mech. Optimus kept his back turned to Megatron as he grabbed cubes of energon for the both of them from the storage closet. “I am about as well as I can be at this time.”

A beat of silence as Optimus closed the closet door and handed Megatron his cube. Both mechs sat down opposite the other before the gladiator reset his vocalizer. “So there was nothing?”

“As usual, Megatron. I told you this morning.” Optimus wanted to follow up and say that he’d ceased the treatments he’d been taking, but something in the depths of his processor told him to keep it to himself for now. “I don’t know how much more clearer I could have made it.”

Megatron gave him a look of confusion, and Optimus had to steel himself a little more and close his optics before he continued. “I’m sorry. I am still in a bit of an emotional state. It has been a stellar cycle.”

Gentle, familiar servos touched his forearms, and Optimus opened his optics to see Megatron’s red ones gazing into his. The gladiator brought one of his servos to his lipplates, and Optimus could feel the kiss on the back of his servo.

“Perhaps,” Megatron said as he leaned in a little bit closer, “shall we try again?”

Something surged through Optimus, and how he really wanted to bite back and say that he was not breeding stock, that he was not something that Megatron could to pay mind to, frag, and then set aside until the next appointment’s results came back. Instead he lifted his helm and gave Megatron a look.

Did he want it? Yes. Primus would strike him down if he lied. Deep in his spark, there was still that primal longing for a spike sliding into him. Optimus reached a servo out and grasped the nearest of Megatron’s pulling the mech into the room and down onto the surface of the berth.

Megatron wasted no time in releasing his spike and in settling between Optimus’s legs, helm pushing against Optimus’s array as teeth and glossa nipped and swiped along the plump, wet lips of Optimus’s valve.

Optimus arched his hips against Megatron’s face, moaning softly as the gladiator continued working his valve with glossa, and then adding digits into the mixture. The rough and ridged surface of those fingers working him over brought him closer to overload, until Megatron withdrew them.

Like a petulant mech, Optimus almost protested, but his inclination to do so was cut short when Megatron sank into his slick heat, a low groan tumbling from that powerful vocalizer.

“You always feel so perfect,” Megatron murmured, driving his hips back and forth, jostling Optimus where he was - not that the data clerk minded. “You are the only one for me.”

Optimus wanted to return the sentiment, but found himself unable to do so. He was certain Megatron would notice how he faltered, but he was saved by the overload that overcame him. Clinging to Megatron’s hips with his legs, Optimus arched back and gasped the other mech’s name as Megatron followed him into blissful oblivion.

His chassis parted, revealing his spark. Without pausing, Megatron parted his and they merged their sparks. It was not so deep that they could read each other’s exact thoughts and communicate without speaking, but they could feel the feedback of their overloads, and could feel the emotions more intensely than simply mingling electromagnetic fields would allow.

A second overload hit them both, and Optimus let it overtake him. In the deepest part of his processor that not even Megatron could get to, he wondered how many more of these the universe had planned.

.-.-.

He knew well where Megatron’s base of communications was. Over time, he’d been aware of more and more of Megatron’s most ardent followers taking over the place, almost as if it were a refuge. In a sense, Optimus mused, it was.

He sent out an ask among his friends for backup, and the first one to respond was Bumblebee. The chipper yellow mech met him at the designated location and on their walk over, talked to Optimus about how excited he was for his friend - Windblade, Optimus remembered - to come for her next visit.

“She might stay here permanently,” Bumblebee said, bright blue optics staring straight ahead, his yellow doorwings fluttering in the air. “She says she thinks of Cybertron as her home now, and she wants to help prevent it from falling to chaos if she can.”

Optimus smiled, a mixture of Bumblebee’s cheery nature, the talk of the Camien, and a faint glimmer of hope for himself and Megatron. “Her efforts will be much appreciated. However, whatever happens to Cybertron is much bigger than any one of us.” He stopped, prompting Bumblebee to stop as well, and out of the corner of his optics he saw his companion cease in his tracks as well.

Optimus stared ahead, at nothing in particular - Megatron was still a few blocks away yet. A pit of discomfort settled in his tanks.

“Uh, Optimus?”

The data clerk ex-vented heavily. “I haven’t seen Megatron in a decacycle,” he replied, more talking to himself than actually responding to Bumblebee. “Of the messages I’ve sent to him, he has only responded to one, and his tone was something he’s rarely used on me before. To add to it, what I have seen on the news feeds has done nothing to alleviate my concerns.”

Both resumed walking, and though Optimus wanted to stop in his tracks again when the imposing silhouette of the building loomed in view, he continued his way.

At the entrance were two seeker builds, optics glaring at them as they closed the distance.

Bumblebee’s worried voice spoke. “There’s too many of them.” And he saw the bot look up at him in his peripherals. “We should have brought more backup.”

“I do not intend to start a fight,” Optimus replied, knowing full well that he may come to regret those words.

The yellow scout was quiet for a minute, and then lowered his voice and asked, “What if he won’t listen?

Optimus let the fire that still burned within his spark, the hope that Megatron still had a soft spot in his own spark for him, lead him forward. “Megatron will listen to me.”

The two seekers kept glaring at them, and Optimus noted how they flattened their wings against their backs and inched them a little higher up, puffing themselves up to seem bigger and more intimidating. He ignored the display, for all that it really was was a display. Getting faceplate-to-faceplate with them, he looked them in the optics.

“I am here to see Megatron.”

One of them snorted derisively while the other replied in a terse manner. “Megatron doesn’t need to see you.”

His retort was quick as he said, “I am not asking.” He tried to get past them but one of the seekers rushed at him, a move he quickly deflected by grabbing the seeker by his collar and hauling them over his shoulder strut so their frame met the ground.

The second seeker tried the exact same move, but he ducked and managed to incapacitate them by jabbing the joint of his elbow into their backplates, right where their wings met, and threw them next to their partner. With his path cleared, he entered. Faintly, he heard Bumblebee say “Wow” and then the patter of his pedes as the scout caught up to him.

Just beyond the entrance was a quartet of more seekers. Unlike the ones at the front, they didn’t glare at him, but merely gave him looks of indifference.

“Where is Megatron?” he asked of them.

One pointed further down the hallway. He followed their gesture past a number of other Decepticons that loitered in the corridors and rooms that he walked by. He kept his audio receptors focused behind him, making sure that Bumblebee was still there with him.

He reached the room at the very end of the hallway and saw the familiar frame of Megatron bent over a console, staring very intently at the screens before him. To his side, Starscream. The seeker turned to face him, sneering as he did so, and said “Oh look, the file clerk is here to list his latest grievances.”

Optimus chose to ignore the seeker, instead going straight for his old paramour. “Megatron,” he said as he walked toward the gladiator.

Without turning to even face him, Megatron lifted a servo in a dismissive gesture, his gravelly voice replying, “I know why you’re here. You’re wasting your time.”

The data clerk felt his spark sink at how quick Megatron was to try and get rid of him. He squared his shoulder struts as he walked past the quivering-in-indignance frame of Starscream. “It is never a waste of time to speak to an old friend.”

“And what have you come to ask of this… old friend?” Megatron replied, turning around, a sneer not unlike Starscream’s on his faceplates.

There was an emphasis on the last two words that Optimus wasn’t sure he liked, but he decided it might be best to ignore it for now, and immediately answered Megatron’s question. “That he might consider embracing a peaceful way to change our world.” He gave a pause for his own emphasis, before continuing, “As we once dreamed.”

“We tried it your way. Now is the time for _action._ ” Megatron approached him, and though Optimus wanted to draw back, he stood his ground and gazed harshly into the gladiator’s face as Megatron continued, “You can still join me. We can accomplish great things together.”

“Yes we can, but this is not the way.”

“You understand what is at stake, and what it will cost. We want the same thing.”

“No we do not. What _you_ want is power.”

“Think carefully old friend. If I must, I will do this without you. And if you do not join us, you are against us.”

Optimus noticed how Megatron’s right servo, the one directly underneath his fusion cannon, curled into a fist. He glanced at it, momentarily scared that the other mech might get it in his processor to use it on him, then closed his optics and lifted his gaze right back to optic level with Megatron, reopening his optics. “I will not join you.”

Megatron made a sudden movement, and still he stood his ground. “Then it will be war!”

There it was. War. Megatron had been threatening it for a while now, but now, to have it used against him, made the true fall of his former love incredibly visceral.

He watched coldly as Megatron turned to Bumblebee next to him. “What about you scout? Will you join us?”

Unable to see Bumblebee in his peripherals as the scout was just out of that range, Optimus felt his spark lighten only slightly when Bumblebee responded, “Never.”

Megatron and Starscream stared at Bumblebee, and then Megatron turned back to the screens that had previously commanded his attention. “I will allow you both to leave unscathed just this once. Be gone.”

Bumblebee began walking, but Optimus instead stepped forward, and in a voice tinged with fury, he said “Megatron.”

Starscream looked at him, but all Megatron did was cease his typing. He could see the other mech’s faceplates reflected in the monitor, how Megatron seemed to be debating between turning and facing him or keeping his back to him.

Instead Megatron hissed, “What is it that you want, Optimus?”

Curling his own servos into fists, Optimus in-vented heavily. “Nothing. I see now what is more important to you, that you would choose violence over other methods, and I cannot be with a mech who thinks as you do. If I have anything left to say, it that I will express gratitude to you for making my decision much easier. Goodbye.” With that, Optimus turned around and held his helm high as he met up with Bumblebee in the doorway and walked out, past the Decepticons staring at them.

.-.-.

“You seem down, Optimus.”

Unaware until now that he’d closed his optics and gone into a light recharge, Optimus lifted his helm from his arms and blinked up at the imposing, yet gentle figure that Alpha Trion cut in his visual field. The elder mech, the archivist that Optimus looked up to as his mentor, pulled a seat up next to Optimus’s workstation and sat down. “Do you feel comfortable talking about it?”

The data clerk pursed his lipplates and stared down at the surface of his desk, wondering just how much he could really tell the Head Archivist about his personal troubles.

“Your troubles regard Megatron, don’t they?”

“How did you know?”

“Just because I am holed up in my office all day, does not mean that I have closed my audio receptors to the world. It is recorded right in our history now, how his methods have begun to change. And I know you well enough to know that it is something you are not comfortable with.”

Optimus sighed as he sat back in his seat and glanced at the offline screen of his monitor before turning his gaze back to his supervisor. “It truly isn’t. I dread what is to come. I went to confront him about his changing methods and…” he paused, thinking that it might be best to mince his words, before realizing that it would do no good. “He threatened war. I am inclined to believe that he means it.”

“Perhaps he was speaking out of anger.”

“No. I’ve seen him when he spoke in anger. This was something far different. I fear the safety of everyone that is now associated with me.”

“Do you believe he’ll seek them out to cause harm?”

“I thought he wasn’t capable of hungering for power more than he hungered for change for us all, but I was wrong. So I do not know. I do not know what he is capable of now.”

Alpha Trion studied him very intently, peering at him through his spectacles, and nodded. “I see what you are saying. Well,” he shifted how he saw on the chair so he leaned forward, “if it is any consolation, the High Council will be meeting within the decacycle to discuss his actions.”

Optimus looked at the older mech curiously. Alpha Trion gave him a small smile in response and extrapolated, “I believe some of them may be coming around to his cause. As the lone dissenting voice among them, I have tried and tried for what feels like eons. I hope to give you some good news soon.”

The data clerk returned the smile and nodded. “I believe we all need it.”

.-.-.

Megatron had attacked the High Council and slaughtered them all before the bell to signal the start of their session had rung.

At least, that was what the news reports on-site were relaying. He’d ceased listening a few kliks ago, after sinking to the ground and putting his helm in his servos. The news report faded into the background, akin to ambient noise. His intake cycle was slow and labored as he tried to calm the frenzy that was his train of thought.

He did it. Megatron had done it.

They were dead. All of them. Even Alpha Trion.

Alpha Trion, who had last left him with a hopeful note that perhaps they could all be saved, if he could only just turn the rest of the High Council to the side of progress.

He didn’t know what to do. For the first time in his not-so-young lifecycle, Optimus felt so lost and alone, adrift among the stars without a way to go.

Rapid knocking came at his front door, shaking him out of his stupor and jolting his spark. After realizing that it was definitely not Megatron’s knock, he got to his pedes. A wave of disorientation came over him, a relatively recent development that he still had to go see Ratchet about, and after he steadied himself against the wall, he walked over to the door.

On the other side he could hear a familiar voice, Bumblebee talking to himself. “Please oh please be here, we need you-”

Optimus opened the door, interrupting the stream of Bumblebee’s talk. The yellow scout raised his doorwings in greeting, and then his face became more serious. “I need you to follow me Optimus, quickly.”

“What is going on?”

“I’ll tell you on the way, it’s urgent.”

Wearily, Optimus nodded, and both mechs took on their vehicular modes. Bumblebee raced off, leading Optimus through the maze of Iaconian streets.

They were uncharacteristically empty. At this hour there would be other bots around, heading into work, younglings being escorted to school, merchants at stalls and carts selling their wares. Optimus had never taken much notice of the bustling streets until this moment, when all was gone.

Both of them came into the central district of Iacon, home to government offices and a neighborhood of oil houses that still saw a lot of traffic during the night. One of the taller buildings, the one that he knew the High Council met in, was a smoking wreck that somehow still stood tall.

Bumblebee guided him up a walkway and through a bridge that led directly into said building. Optimus grew concerned as they got even closer.

“Hurry, this way.”

This time he spoke up. “Bumblebee, where are you taking me?”

Apparently they’d reached the end of their journey. Bumblebee stopped and did a small flip as he changed out of his vehicular mode into his bipedal one. He flicked his wings slightly and began walking. “Alpha Trion.”

What? What did Bumblebee mean? “I thought Megatron destroyed the High Council,” Optimus replied as he followed the yellow scout.

“Alpha Trion survived,” Bumblebee said, stopping and turning around to look at him, “but he won’t last much longer. That’s why I was sent for you.”

Optimus walked past the scout and towards the end of the walkway that had been bombed out. Amongst the wreckage, he saw some movement. As he approached, he could make out the form of Alpha Trion laying down on a large, flat slab of rubble. To his side, a familiar face and form.

“Ratchet! Is he-”

“Trion’s barely hanging onto his spark,” Ratchet said, keeping his optics on his patient and not looking up at Optimus as the mech rushed forward and knelt down. “He wanted me to wake him as soon as you arrived.”

The data clerk watched raptly as the medic withdrew a device from his subspace and placed it over Alpha Trion’s helm. The machine made a faint noise, and then Trion’s blue optics opened. The High Councilor, the sole survivor of the massacre, made a few incoherent noises, but it seemed like his optics were trying to focus on Optimus.

Optimus inched closer. “Alpha Trion, I am here now. This is my fault.” He paused for a moment and then his voice quieted. “I should have stopped Megatron when I had the chance.”

His mentor, his longtime friend smiled weakly at him. “Perhaps. But you did what you felt was right.” He groaned softly as he tried to shift how he lay. “Now is not about what you have done, but what you can do. I have held the Matrix of Leadership for many years, waiting for one worthy to become the next Prime.” Alpha Trion reached over to the pile of rubble next to him, and it was then that Optimus realized there was a container among them. It was beaten up, no doubt due to the attack, but it stood out and still gleamed.

The High Councilor pressed a button on the container, which opened to reveal the object. It shone brilliantly, and then began to levitate. Optimus regarded it warily, optics wide, trying to convince himself that this was a strange dream. There had been no attack, his mentor was not one pede in the afterlife, and the Matrix of Leadership was just something he would never see.

“But I’m no leader, Alpha Trion,” Optimus said, sounding like a scared youngling even to his own audios. “I’m not ready.”

The dim light of Trion’s optics brightened a little bit as he flashed a very faint smile. “No one ever is.”

The Matrix of Leadership rose high above their helms, all their gazes following it. Entranced and almost as if on command, Optimus opened his chassis, and the Matrix settled in next to his spark. He closed his optics, stood to his pedes, and raised his helm to the sky as the surge of power contained within spread through his circuitry and frame.

He glowed. He could see the light dancing off of the mechs before him.

When he was next in his right mind of processor, he looked down to Alpha Trion’s closed optics. Ratchet was hovering over them, his demeanor now sullen. Off to the side, Bumblebee cast his glance down, and his doorwings drooped.

“He’s gone,” the medic said quietly.

Optimus, hard as he could, tried to fight down the pit of sadness that welled up in his tanks and optics, but he lost. He knelt down once more and gently cradled the frame of the old High Councilor, mentor, and friend in his arms, quashing down the sobs that threatened to break free.

It wouldn’t do any of them any good for him to cry.

.-.-.

Under cover of darkness he’d gone back home with Bumblebee and grabbed his favorite datapads, a few picture captures, and all the energon they could carry from his storage closet. It happened to be perfect timing, as a solar cycle later the housing complex had fallen in a bombing run.

There was nothing left for him. Just as Megatron had embraced the Decepticon movement in its entirety, letting it consume him, Optimus fell into the embrace of the Autobot movement.

He hated to say no. In all honesty, he couldn’t say no to this endeavour. Who else could do this but the bearer of the Matrix?

The roof of the bunker rumbled slightly. Another Decepticon bombing run. It had been some time since any of the Autobots had made their way directly above into the market district of Iacon, for fear that it would immediately expose their hidden base of operations. Instead everyone was required to use one of the numerous tunnels that led a good distance outside of Iacon proper, coming out into the outskirts.

Optimus stared at the ceiling as it shook, and then closed his optics against the bits of debris falling from above. He sighed and rolled over in his berth, sitting up, willing himself to not pass out or hurl again. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience.

As if he’d known, Ratchet bustled into his room, glaring at him.

“You missed your morning report. Again.”

Oh. Oh frag. He had. That gave Optimus the momentary jolt of energy he needed in order to stand up and straighten his posture. “I did indeed. I am sorry. I wasn’t aware that I’d overslept the alarm I had set up.”

Ratchet looked at him curiously and lifted his helm up a little bit. “You haven’t been able to recharge, which is pretty obvious. Are you at least refueling enough?”

“I’m… I don’t notice anymore, Ratchet.” And it was the truth; Optimus had been so focused on the reports being given to him, and stepping out onto the battlefield, that he’d become an expert in self-neglect. “Truthfully I cannot tell you the last time I’m certain I refueled.”

The medic gave him a stern look, and then Optimus found himself being hauled onto his pedes and steered towards the little office that Ratchet had claimed for himself in this bunker. “What use are you gonna be if you’re gonna forget to refuel and actually recharge. Here,” the medic said as he produced a syringe from his subspace and injected it into the closest of Optimus’s arms. The Prime wanted to protest, but knew it was a necessity and that he had no pede to stand on. So, he endured the series of injections meant to help refill his energy tanks.

“Okay, you’re all done with that, but I’m still gonna need to run a scan on you just to make sure your self-neglect didn’t frag anything else up.”

Optimus sighed and nodded, hoisting himself up so he could sit down on the berth that was pushed up to one of the walls, opposite the desk. He opened the access port located on his side and let Ratchet plug a scanning machine in. During the wait for results, Optimus closed his optics and thought of what he’d missed and what he had to do. He remembered Bumblebee had said something yesterday about Windblade coming in and that he had to meet her properly. He wondered if she was already in.

Suddenly, the medic made a noise that drew Optimus out of his processor. The Prime blinked his optics to refocus them and looked worriedly at his friend. “Ratchet?”

Ratchet looked like he wanted to fall onto the floor. The medic shook his helm. “I’m going to run this scan of your frame again.”

He saw something. Worst-case scenarios began to pop up in Optimus’s processor, but he tried to shake them out of his mind as he allowed Ratchet to run the test all over again. They waited the tense klik that that one scan took, and then Ratchet moved the screen of the device closer to him again.

Suddenly, Ratchet barked out a laugh. There was no joy in it.

“The universe is a fragger. Took getting you off those treatments for it to finally work.”

What? Treatments?

Oh. Oh no.

The Prime tried to ask what Ratchet meant by it but he couldn’t find the words. He didn’t have to - Ratchet looked up at him, pain evident in the mech’s optics. “You’re sparked, Optimus. I’m so sorry.”

He stared at Ratchet, unblinking, for a few nanokliks. Then he closed his optics again, shook his helm, and reopened them as he said, “I can’t be sparked.”

“Optimus-”

“I can’t, I-”

“Optimus!” Ratchet said sternly, turning the monitor of the device towards him. “The scan says otherwise. Two spark signatures, and you’re also running through the energon I just gave you at a faster pace than most bots would.” He shook the scanner, and Optimus took it into his servos.

There it was. Confirmation of a little spark twined with his.

He knew this answer. But he still had to be certain. Sighing shakily, he asked, “How old?”

“What?”

“How old is it?”

“About four to five decacycles old.”

Yes. That would line up with when he’d ceased his treatments, and the last time that he and Megatron had been intimate. The news crashed the fragile world he’d built for himself. At one point in time, so very recently, something like this had been all he’d wanted, and just now, when he least expected it, when he least wanted this to occur...

Feeling his servos begin to shake, Optimus gave the device back to Ratchet and placed both of his servos over his mouth and closed his optics as he tried to stifle the quiet sobs coming from his chassis. Of course, it was all for naught.

Gentle digits touched his arm, uncharacteristic for his friend in most situations, but he knew Ratchet was capable of sympathy. Optimus didn’t pause as he pulled Ratchet close and, like a youngling, buried his faceplates in the medic’s wide chassis and sobbed openly.

Everything was far too much. Megatron, the lost joint cause of theirs, the violence, deaths that weighed heavily on his conscience, the Matrix of Leadership, and now this - a sparkling.

How he had prayed for and wanted this when he and Megatron stood by each other’s side, promising they would remain so unto death, supporting each other through all of the trials and tribulations that life would throw at them.

His spark panged with a loss more severe than he thought he knew. How he had yearned to cry when he saw the feed in an underground shelter, Megatron’s face distorted by static, that voice he loved so deeply calling for war. Betrayal, he’d said. Betrayal of the cause they’d fought for. The Matrix of Leadership belonged to the High Council, so anyone receiving the Matrix of Leadership was complicit of the same crimes as the higher classes and governing bodies of Cybertron.

Optimus wanted to plead otherwise. Alpha Trion had been the lone dissenting voice among those that sought to keep them all under subjugation in accordance with the status quo. He was not aligned with the High Council, but instead with his old friend and mentor.

But he knew well that his voice would fall on deaf audios.

Now, in the safety of a friend’s company, he let himself weep bitterly.

“He should have been here. Our love created this. Our hatred for one another has driven us apart. Now,” his voice faltered slightly, and he rebooted his vocalizer before continuing, “now this. Our sparkling won’t know him as their sire.”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry.” Then the full intention of Optimus’s words hit him, and Ratchet looked again at the Prime. “You want to keep this from Megatron?”

Resisting the intense urge to hurl into a waste can, a mixture of fatigue and anxiety, Optimus placed a servo over his optics and sighed heavily. “What choice do I have, Ratchet? If he finds out I’ve been successfully sparked, he will do absolutely everything to get our sparkling into his arms, and in that process he will not care who he brings harm to, be they Autobot or Decepticon. For our safety,” he moved his servo from his optics, “he cannot know that I’m carrying.”

“So you’re gonna keep it?”

“I will. Anything else is out of the question.”

There was a beat of silence between both of them, heavy with meaning. Ratchet nodded. “Think it might be best to keep it under wraps from the rest of the Autobots too, for a time.”

“Yes,” Optimus said softly, regulating his intake cycle as best as he could. “I know we’ll find a way. How long do I have before I begin to…” he trailed off, rethought his question, and then rephrased it. “How much longer do I have before my frame begins to betray my condition?”

Ratchet gave a snort, though it wasn’t derisive in nature. He reached an arm behind his helm, placing his servo on the back of his neck. “Honestly? It can vary. If you were small like Bumblebee and a Megatron-sized bot were the sire, I’d say a few decacycles at most, but you and Megatron are almost the same height. Fragger’s a little bulkier than you but not by much.” Ratchet groaned and looked up at the ceiling. “Probably about a third to half a stellar cycle before everyone can guess.”

“Then we try to keep this under wraps as long as we possibly can. Any files that you keep regarding this-”

“I’ll keep ‘em in my subspace. Not gonna risk it by uploading that stuff to the main server where the ‘cons can get it.”

Optimus sighed in relief. “I suppose… maybe someone else should keep a copy of it. Just in case.”

Ratchet cocked his helm to the side. “Who do you trust enough to keep a copy of your carrying cycle files on them?”

“Bumblebee. He is talkative, but he is capable of keeping a secret. He also accompanied me to my last meeting with Megatron and was steadfast in staying on our side, even though he once worshipped the ground that Megatron walks on.” Optimus smiled at the thought of the little yellow scout and nodded. “I believe I can probably trust his friend as well, Windblade. I will… speak to them at a later time.”

The medic sighed. “If you say so. I don’t trust anyone ‘cept you at this point, so whoever you say. Here,” Ratchet handed the device back to Optimus. “If you wanted to look at it a little more. I need to go fish around for those datapads with the information on carrying that I have.”

Optimus grabbed the device again, watching as Ratchet bustled out of the room, and then looked at the screen of the monitor again, tracing his digits around the readings of the second spark signature. It was strong.

Strong like… strong like Megatron. How he would have been so elated. The Prime closed his optics and imagined another lifetime, sharing the news with Megatron.

That lifetime was not to be. It hurt. But there was nothing more that he could do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, last week: "I think it might be a struggle to get to 3000 words on this next chapter, but I'm up for the challenge."  
> Me, now, with a chapter over 8700 words: "Why am I like this?"
> 
> Comments and kudos are much loved, and I truly appreciate everyone that reads this ^^


	3. Moment's Rest

Hurting.

Tanks churning violently, displeased with whatever was in there.

Over in the next room, he could hear everything going on. Bumblebee’s voice mingling with Windblade’s.

As he did each morning, he woke from recharge absolutely overstimulated by the assault on his senses. He tried and willed hard for his frame to stay steady but his pleas were ignored; he promptly rolled onto his side, leaning over the edge of the berth and hurling into the waste can placed there for that exact purpose. He shivered and shook his helm, trying his best to shake off the jitters that would always overtake his frame after each bout of nausea. All the motion did was bring up another round of undigested energon for him to retch. 

His helm felt light and ached terribly. He would need to take his ration of energon with the extra mineral additives that Ratchet had prescribed for the sparkling and then lie down for another few kliks before he might feel well enough to get up and go about his day.

At this point in time he knew there would be questions. Optimus was aware of the gazes on him whenever he needed to go and get himself back in a right state of processor. But no one else could know just yet.

The ceiling suddenly shook, a huge tremor unlike the previous ones they’d endured in the seemingly long time they’d all been hiding in the base. He looked up and blinked his optics against the falling debris. 

There was a commotion outside, the congregating voices a little alarmed. He quickly drank his ration of energon with the additives, shuddered through the taste, and then stepped outside into the corridor.

A number of the Autobots were gathered, looking upwards as well.

“That sounded different,” Bumblebee said, pressing himself against Windblade, the jet nodding in assent as the ceiling shook yet again.

Wheeljack made a gruff noise. “Last time I got to speak with Shockwave, he was trying to develop new methods of airstrikes. Wondered what for, but then we stopped when fraghead declared war.”

“It seems to be the reasonable conclusion,” Optimus said quietly, apparently startling everyone as they all jolted a little where they stood, and then turned to face him. “The Decepticons are already under the unfortunately correct impression that we’re hiding out in Iacon. I’m not sure how much intelligence they have on our whereabouts.”

“It’ll only be a matter of time before they find us all,” Arcee said softly from where she stood next to Wheeljack. “If that’s the case,” she looked around at the group of around a dozen Autobots in the hallway, “we’ll have to split up. Possibly leave.”

Optimus sighed and pinched his nasal ridge between two of his digits, closing his optics for a moment and thinking. He reopened his optics and looked upon them all, the hopeful Autobots that dared to follow him when it seemed like the universe favored Megatron. “I would rather us all stay together, as after all there is much more power in numbers. But if the Decepticons find our base, we will have to decide where to go from there.”

Hot Rod spoke up from where he was, somewhere behind Bumblebee and Grimlock. “But what if it’s too late by then?”

“I have considered that. And I’m sorry that I… don’t have anything to give right now. If there are any suggestions of what to do other than abandon our headquarters in that instance, I am very willing to hear it.”

There was no response. Everyone else looked among themselves.

“In the meantime, we continue the protocols we have in place to avoid detection. I am sure we have other matters to tend to,” Optimus looked at the ceiling again, “since it seems that the strikes have ceased for now.”

The bots all took the hint and dispersed. He saw Bumblebee and Windblade speaking to each other and making to head off somewhere. This was his chance to talk to the both of them, as he’d been putting it off for some time. “Bumblebee, Windblade,” Optimus said quietly, a tone barely loud enough for the other bots that were now leaving the area to hear. He caught both bots’ attentions and he nodded. “I would like to speak with both of you privately, please.”

The yellow scout and the red jet exchanged a glance, and then Bumblebee cleared his vocalizer. “Sure thing, Optimus.”

Optimus retreated further up the hallway that was void of other Autobots, and after making sure there was no one else around, he faced the other two. “I have something that I need to tell you both, but I need your word that under no circumstances will you reveal this to anyone else.”

“I mean, sure, but,” Windblade looked at him curiously, her optics widened with worry, “Optimus… are you okay? Is it something we should be afraid of?”

“I would certainly hope it’s not a reason to be afraid.” The Prime knew it was best to not continue to draw it out further. “It has been a few decacycles since it was discovered, but Ratchet and I have kept it secret. I am carrying a sparkling, and as you are one of my few trusted confidants,” Optimus drew out the copy of the medical file that Ratchet had given him from his subspace, “I have this favor to ask of you.”

Bumblebee looked at the datapad with wide-optic’d wonder and grabbed it as Optimus continued, “This is a copy of the medical file Ratchet has been keeping on myself and the sparkling. He and I decided not to risk uploading it to the main server in case of any Decepticon attempts to hack the mainframe. I am asking if I can trust you, and you as well Windblade, to take care of this in case something were to happen to Ratchet.”

“You’re carrying?” Bumblebee immediately asked, looking back up at him with eager optics. “It’s Megatron’s, isn’t it?”

He saw how Windblade put a servo on the mech’s backplates and gave him a look. “I don’t think now’s the time, Bee.”

“It is fine,” Optimus said softly. “ Megatron and I had,” he paused and tried to think of a way to phrase it. “We had made plans for our future. This was the... only plan that came to fruition. We didn’t discover it until some time after Megatron declared war and we were forced underground.”

“Does he know?” Windblade asked.

The Prime firmly shook his helm. “He does not. I do not want him to know, which is why it is imperative that this be kept a secret as long as possible. I am trusting the both of you, alongside Ratchet, to not reveal this to anyone.”

There was a moment of silence while Bumblebee looked at the datapad again. His servos gripped it, and the little bot closed and then reopened his optics.

“We’ll take care of it, Optimus,” Windblade said, nodding. “We promise.”

Bumblebee nodded again in affirmation, sticking the datapad in his subspace. “And we won’t tell anyone else either. You can count on us.” Then the yellow scout smiled, doorwings moving slightly upward. “A sparkling, huh? Any idea what it is?”

Windblade mirrored Bumblebee’s smile. “I’ve never been up close to a sparkling before. They’re not too common on Caminus. Should be an interesting experience.”

The unbridled optimism that both of the younger bots exhibited served to help Optimus feel only an iota better about the situation he was left in, but nonetheless it was still an iota better than he’d been feeling as of recently. He returned their smiles and shook his helm in the negative, gently saying, “It is still far too early to see what frame type they will have, and whether or not they are mech or femme. The readings that Ratchet has given me say that it might be another few decacycles before their consciousness has developed to a level that I may sense.”

“Do you feel… I don’t know, weird?”

“If purging every morning and feeling far more exhausted than I should be counts as such, then yes. I certainly feel weird.”

At that moment, a small explosion sounded, a little too close and clear to be another airstrike. Nonetheless, he heard a lot of panicked yelps and exclamations through the base. Optimus knew by now, from prior experience, that it had to be Wheeljack working on something.

“I will speak to the both of you later,” he told the two younger bots. “Right now I have to go speak with Wheeljack.”

He made his way through the hallway, passing through the circular console room where Grimlock, Arcee, and Hot Rod sat, focusing intently on the screens and communications coming through, and onto the other hallway where Wheeljack and Perceptor’s shared lab was. He entered the room, and the acrid smell of whatever it was that had gone haywire and produced that explosion reached his olfactory senses, and Optimus swayed on his pedes. He turned his helm away and pressed his body against the nearest wall, trying to steady himself. His processor swum, mind awry, and he felt nausea coming up once more.

By sheer willpower, and the helpful spritizes of deodorizer that came from a can in Wheeljack’s grip, he reopened his optics and ex-vented heavily.

“You alright there, Optimus?”

Optimus took a moment to make sure he was not further disoriented, and then nodded, straightening his posture and looking at the scientist. “I will be fine. Simply a lingering condition.”

“Saying the obvious here but you should really go see Ratchet. You almost put your helm through the wall there”

Wanting that particular conversation to end, Optimus replied a little firmly. “Ratchet is aware and monitoring me. I will be fine, Wheeljack. It will take some time.”

Wheeljack gave him a look that clearly said that he didn’t quite know if he should take his word for it, and then nodded and turned his attention back to the-

“Is that-”

“Trying to recreate the process that Shockwave and I used for the helper drones,” Wheeljack cut Optimus off before the Prime could finish his question. “Pretty sure he’ll try and equip them to follow us and spy on us, but I want to post these around our entrances to ward them off. Didn’t save the copy of the schematics I copied off him, and I kick myself for it. I know I left it somewhere in his lab.”

“There would not have been a way to realize that a war would occur,” Optimus said quietly, craning his helm at the other mech. “Wouldn’t the presence of these drones exactly at the entrances to our base alert the Decepticons that they are, as it might be said, hot on our trail?”

The white-armored bot looked up at him, clearly stumped. Optimus knew he had him there, but not in a malicious manner. The Prime smiled and nodded. “What I am implying is that a few other drones left around Iacon and the surrounding area might serve to throw them off slightly. It may not be much, but it could mean the difference between the Decepticons finding us soon, or later.”

Wheeljack grinned brightly as the realization dawned on him. The winglets on his back made a flicking motion, and then he nodded. “I’ll get right on it.”

At that moment, the remains of the little drone he’d been working on set off a shower of sparks. Wheeljack grumbled.

Optimus made his way out of the lab and back towards the section of the bunkers that housed everyone’s quarters. How he wanted to retreat back into the temporary safe haven that was his quarters, his quarters that had his datapads and image captures and the rest of his life’s treasured belongings, but it would be a bit more before he could do such a thing. 

Instead, he ran into Bumblebee again, and a plan formed in his processor. He gently placed a servo on the yellow scout’s shoulder strut. “Bumblebee?”

“Yes Optimus?” Bee replied, his optics bright.

“I have a favor to ask of you,” Optimus said, taking a deep in-vent. “Wheeljack mentioned that some of his work relating to the construction of the drones is still located in Shockwave’s lab. I would like you to try and retrieve his work. Those plans would be instrumental in helping our defense systems against the Decepticons.”

An expression of contemplation, and then excitement, crossed over Bumblebee’s faceplates. “Can do!” the mech said cheerily, his doorwings wiggling along with his entire frame in anticipation. “When did you want me to head out?”

“As soon as you are able to. The sooner we are able to locate these schematics, the sooner that Wheeljack will be able to start on these drones, and the later we can postpone our discovery by the Decepticons.”

“I’ll talk to Grimlock and Hot Rod. I should be able to head out right now if you want.”

“If it is not a rush, I would greatly appreciate it. Be careful out there.”

Bumblebee gave him a slag-eating grin and puffed his chassis out. “You know me - I always come back unscathed.”

.-.-.

In the distance he saw it. A small yellow frame barely clinging to life. His spark lurched violently, and his tanks sank and threatened to make him sick.

A loud voice rang out in the hallway, a tone that would haunt him.

“Bumblebee!”

Windblade shot past all of them, following Grimlock and Wheeljack down the corridor as they carted the smaller, yellow frame into the medical bay. She was in hysterics, and Ratchet came through the doorway of the medbay, putting his servos on her shoulders. There was enough distance between them that words couldn’t be made out, but Ratchet looked far more serious than Optimus could remember seeing the medic.

Optimus watched the sad scene unfold, how Windblade went from shaking in rage and terror to slumping her shoulder struts in defeat. She nodded at something Ratchet had told her, and when Ratchet retreated back into the medbay, Windblade sank to the floor with her wings retracted into her frame, and her helm in her servos. The Prime crossed the distance between the both of them, sitting himself down next to the Camien. 

His spark was in a fit, and Optimus closed his optics, sighing wearily. It was his fault, he knew. If only he had not sent Bumblebee on that mission.

It was because of him that they’d almost lost him in that manner. If luck were not in their favor this moment, they would lose the yellow scout altogether, and he couldn't think of much that would be worse.

The thought of it made him sick, made him want to weep at the notion. He couldn’t begin to imagine exactly how Windblade felt this moment. He supposed he could feel something similar, much as what he’d felt when he’d last confronted Megatron. 

“I should have gone with him,” Windblade said softly. “I told him I would go, but he said it was a one-bot job and he could do it.” Her shoulder struts shook as she held back sobs, but her voice was still thick with grief. “I should’ve gone.”

The Prime slowly and tenderly placed a servo on the femme’s shoulder struts. “I am sorry, Windblade,” Optimus said quietly, his voice almost inaudible even to himself. He raised his volume a little more. “I did not expect the mission to take the turn that it did.”

The jet shook her helm. “It’s hard out there. But something like this…” she trailed off. “I expect damage sometimes, when he comes back. Not offlining.”

Suddenly the doors to the medical ward opened again, and Wheeljack and Grimlock stepped out, both mechs looking far more grim than Optimus had seen them. They stopped when they noticed him and Windblade. Optimus was the first to speak. “What happened out there?”

Grimlock spoke matter of factly, a haunted look in the large mech’s optics. “Hot Rod informed us that he was requesting extraction. When we couldn’t find him, we searched the area and found him like this.”

“Crumpled in a heap,” Wheeljack followed up, moving one of his servos to his neck. Optimus noticed the haunted look to his faceplates. “He was beaten too, lying pool of his own en-.”

“Stop,” Windblade ordered, voice shaking as she got to her pedes. “Just, stop. I don’t want to hear anymore.”

Both Grimlock and Wheeljack exchanged glances before murmuring their condolences. They nodded at Optimus, and then left. 

The Prime sighed, feeling far more exhausted and defeated than was usual at this point in time. 

Windblade spoke up after a moment, fixing a critical optic on Optimus. “What mission was Bumblebee on?”

Optimus met her gaze and he wanted to wilt under the intensity. Steeling himself, he replied, “Wheeljack had mentioned off-servo that the schematics for the drones that he and Shockwave had created were somewhere still in Shockwave’s lab. I sent Bumblebee to try and retrieve them, as it would be very helpful for us to have drones of our own.”

He waited for some sort of response to come. Her to begin yelling at him for sending him on such a last-minute mission with no backup, but there was no wrath that came his way. All Windblade did was close her optics and pinch the bridge of her nose between two digits.

“Maybe we’ll figure out what happened when he wakes up,” she said. There was a tone of defeat in her voice.

Both Prime and Camien waited outside of the doors in silence. The heavy sickness that Optimus had felt a little earlier upon seeing Bumblebee’s immobile frame being carted off to the medical bay returned full force. He closed his own optics and pressed his helm against the nearest wall, willing his tanks to behave. There was no need for him to have a medical episode of his own, not while one of his dearest friends was hanging on for his life.

Thankfully, his frame seemed to take the hint. Slowly, the nauseated sensation ebbed from a strong and steady urge to a slow and faint pulse.

At that moment, Ratchet exited the medical bay. Optimus straightened himself, watching out of the corner of his optics as Windblade did the same. He was the first to speak, resetting his vocalizer. “How is he, Ratchet?”

The medic, his longtime friend, had an ashen look on his faceplates. Ratchet sighed and neither shook his helm or nodded to give any gesture of indication. “He’s gonna pull through. Managed to stop the energon loss, but…”

Windblade bristled. “But?” she said a little acidly, trying to prompt Ratchet to continue.

“His vocalizer is gone.”

A beat of silence, filled with horror from the ones who listened.

“Gone?” Optimus asked, incredulity in his voice.

Ratchet nodded. “Gone. Whoever the frag got a hold of him, they didn’t show him any mercy. Tore it out.”

Optimus could hear Windblade’s intakes hitch in shock. “Tore it out?” he asked, wanting to make sure he’d heard correctly, and hoping he had heard incorrectly.

Unfortunately, the medic sighed. “It’s gone completely. Can’t speak, and can’t imagine how the frag he managed to survive that.”

“But he did,” Windblade countered, her posture one of someone getting ready for a duel. Her gaze fixed on Ratchet. “So, you can repair his vocalizer, right?”

“Well in theory I can, but Primus help us, it’s gonna take a while for his frame to even get to a point where I can examine him and see how to fix it up.”

“But you  _ can _ fix him up?”

“Yes Windblade, I can,” Ratchet replied, a little edge in his voice that Optimus picked up on. “But it’s not gonna be in the time you want it to be.”

Optimus saw a shadow of regret come over Windblade’s face, somehow aging her so she looked far older than she really was. The jet closed her optics, shook her helm, and then said, “Can we go see him?”

Ratchet nodded and stepped aside to give them room. 

Windblade darted into the medical ward, and Optimus followed her, both of them trailing down the corridor into the one room that had a dim light coming from it.

On a slab of metal, scanners and wires all over his frame, and a rudimentary bandage on his neck, lay Bumblebee. The little scout’s optics were just barely open, his gaze at some point on the ceiling directly above him. 

“Bee?”

The bandage on his neck prevented the full range of movement, but Bumblebee’s optics flickered over to Windblade, and his electromagnetic field immediately bloomed outward, enveloping both Windblade and Optimus in it. Fusing his own electromagnetic field with the scout’s, Optimus pulsed waves of sorrow and remorse.

Bumblebee responded with his own little wave of apology. What he was trying to apologize for, Optimus had no idea. Bumblebee had nothing that he needed to apologize for.

Windblade was already at Bumblebee’s side, her servos holding onto the nearest of his. Bumblebee gave her a wan smile and leaned into the kiss that she gave his helm.

The sight made Optimus’s spark clench in longing for the time that he had one to do that with. He reset his vocalizer, and said in a soft, hushed tone, “Bumblebee, I am sorry. I should not have sent you on that mission.”

Bumblebee looked back at him, an expression on his faceplates that Optimus couldn’t quite read. The scout blinked at him, and then a small smile came over his faceplates.

Windblade looked up from the mech laying on the berth and smiled at Optimus. “It comes with the war. He understands.” Then she looked back at Bumblebee, her free servo stroking his forehelm. “Bee,” she whispered. “Who did this to you?”

The scout blinked his optics at her, very slowly, and Optimus felt a familiar sinking sensation in his spark. He had a feeling who the culprit was, and though part of himself prayed that he might be wrong, he asked, “Was it Megatron?”

Bumblebee shifted his optics to gaze at him again. After a few moments of tense silence, the scout gave a slow and minute nod of his helm.

A look of murderous rage came over Windblade’s faceplates and she stilled her servo that had been gently stroking Bee’s helm. 

“He’s going to pay for what he did to you. For what he’s done to everyone.”

Optimus couldn’t find it in him to try and talk Windblade down. Primus damn him for still hoping and praying that the mech he once loved so deeply could still be saved, but Megatron was too far gone.

If there had been any doubts left in him, they were now gone.

.-.-.

The next solar cycle found him waking with the usual urge to upchuck the contents of his tanks into the waste bin. Optimus groaned weakly and pulled the receptacle close, holding it between his thighs. Slowly, the urge overcame him until it was unbearable, and then the sludge that his frame deemed unnecessary for the growing bitlet was finally ejected.

Once the fit of purging had passed him, he set the waste bin aside and placed a servo over his midsection.

It would still be more time until he could actually feel more than just the urge to retch on a regular basis. Part of him longed to feel the sparkling move, feel their nascent consciousness try to reach for him; how much he wanted to know them and try to gain a sense of their personality. He wanted to know what he and Megatron had created.

Then there was the part of him that begged the bitlet to stay at this stage for a while - at the very least, until he could ensure their safety.

His spark panged with the losses he still had yet to recover from. His love, his mentor, those he considered friends, and the loss of a safe, secure world that his sparkling should have been brought into.

Optimus stood very slowly, making certain that he wasn’t going to bring up some more dregs, and walked over to the broken mirror that he’d saved from a rubble heap. He opened his chassis plates and looked at the Matrix of Leadership glowly brilliantly from within.

A hushed voice began whispering at him, and instantly he knew that, as the keeper of the artifact - it was the Matrix trying to communicate with him.

In his time at the Hall, he’d read journal entries from long-gone Primes, those that served before him. They all described how it felt to communicate with the Matrix, the essence of the Primes before all stored within, in the hope that the current bearer might listen to their wisdom.

One solar cycle, his own voice would be among them.

He hoped, for his own selfish sake and for the sake of the sparkling he carried, that it would not be any time soon.

Optimus focused his energy on the Matrix and closed his optics, blocking out visual stimuli as he did his best to clear his processor for communication. As he did so, the voices gradually became a little bit clearer, though the words were still hushed.

He did make one sentence out. After he understood it, the other voices chimed in and repeated the sentence in unison.

Reopening his optics, Optimus stared at his reflection in the mirror and closed his chassis plates, hiding the Matrix safely from view. He reached out and placed a servo on the wall next to the mirror, sighing as he took note of the time.

A few moments passed him by - and then he opened up a private communication channel, hoping that the recipient might have found it in themselves to at least respond.

.-.-.

“So why are we doing this again?”

Grunting in pain and exertion as he and Windblade treked over a particularly rough patch of terrain, Optimus replied, “The Matrix informed me that my presence is needed.”

“At the Core?” The Camien sounded rather incredulous. “Are you sure that’s what it told you?”

The Prime huffed, a little bit in exhaustion, for the sparkling was excellent at draining his energy, and a little bit in indignation. “I’m absolutely certain that’s what it told me, Windblade.”

Windblade’s wings twitched, and she finally, after about a cycle of them walking, where she didn’t need them out, retracted them into her back plating. She kept up her stride, making sure she stayed a few paces ahead of Optimus. They reached the wide opening of a cavern, and as he looked down it, he felt the Matrix reassure him that this was the right way to go.

“Inside,” he said softly. He saw Windblade gaze at the cavern hesitantly before she went inside. He followed her in.

Both Camien and Prime walked in silence for a few more kliks, time passing them by and their footfalls echoing in the cave as they descended the rocky steps to the lower levels.

“Optimus, can I ask you a question?”

It seemed like it was something Windblade had been thinking about for a while. Optimus made a noise deep in his chassis, as if thinking about it, and then nodded when Windblade paused to look back at him.

“Why don’t you want to tell Megatron about this?”

“Tell him about what, exactly?”

“That you’re carrying his sparkling.”

No matter the fact that he’d expected that question at some time, it still made him uneasy to think further about. Optimus stopped in his tracks, prompting Windblade to stop where she was and turn around to look back at him. The Prime thought his words over carefully before responding. “If Megatron were to find out that I am carrying his progeny, he will stop at nothing to get to them.” Optimus went quiet for a minute, thinking of what more to say. “I don’t like the idea of having to keep this from him. He wanted this sparkling, more than even I did at the time. Believe me, Windblade. If life had taken the turns I hoped it would, this would not be an issue.”

He thought briefly to his ideal world - he and Megatron with their sparkling. How Megatron would have absolutely done anything for their child, something they created purely from themselves.

“Doesn’t Megatron have a right to know his own sparkling?” Windblade asked, her voice cutting through his daydream. “I know if I were in that situation, I would be upset if the carrier of my sparkling neglected to tell me anything.”

Optimus wanted to tell Windblade that she was being naive. Instead, he replied in a resigned voice. “Windblade, the situation changes drastically when said mech has slaughtered countless others in violent pursuit of a future he wants to happen, and unfortunately will continue to do so. Last I was aware, you do not have that rapport with Bumblebee.”

The jet’s wings stiffened as if offense was taken, but then her wings relaxed and she sighed. “It’s really that obvious?”

He managed to find it in himself to smile at her. “It took me a few decacycles to realize I was carrying. It took me a much shorter amount of time to realize that the both of you were interested in one another.”

“So everyone knew?”

“Well, I don’t speak for everyone, but I also do believe there were some betting activities going on.”

“Oh Primus. Okay, enough of that,” the jet said, huffing in some sort of indignation. She paced a little faster, stepping ahead of Optimus and walking through a stone archway with her blade drawn. Optimus stopped where he was, looking around and behind in search for anyone that may have followed the both of them. 

Windblade’s voice reached his audio receptors after another few nanokliks. “Clear.”

The Prime crossed under the archway, finding himself at the top of a wide, expansive stairway, looking into a chamber far bigger, and far brighter, than the last ones that he and Windblade had been in. 

Optimus knew they’d reached the destination.

He descended the stairs, adjusting his visual sensors so he wasn’t so incredibly blinded by the glow of the Core. Ahead of him, Windblade seemed to contemplate whether she should be on pede, or fly down.

Ultimately, she decided to stick with him, and for that he was grateful. He followed her down, like a sparkling following their carrier. The further they descended, the more that the Core loomed in view, imposing.

For the first time since the both of them had headed out a few cycles ago, Optimus felt a twinge of trepidation. He began to doubt himself, to doubt that he’d heard the voices from the Matrix correctly - perhaps this was the wrong place and they were not supposed to be here. Perhaps, he’d imagined those voices in his processor.

The both of them came to the dais in front of the Core. To his side, he heard Windblade’s intakes hitch in awe. Optimus got it in his processor to suggest that they should leave.

A moment later, the Core brightened to a luminosity that was incredibly overwhelming. Both he and Windblade groaned at the assault on their senses.

In the bright white, Optimus saw a bolt of strong, brilliant blue whip out in his direction and he jolted when it hit him. Optimus felt the surge of energy overtake his frame, much in the same way that the Matrix had done so when he’d taken it into his chassis. The overpowered wave sent him to his knees, and he groaned as he hit the ground.

_ I am glad that you found your way here, Optimus Prime. _

The voice echoed around in his processor, powerful and commanding, with a gravitas that he himself strived to achieve one solar cycle.

The moment he’d been bestowed the Matrix came to the forefront of his processor. He had to ask the question he’d so badly wanted to ask Alpha Trion before the mech had offlined. Primus couldn’t ignore him now.

_ “Primus, why was I given this responsibility? This was far, far too much for me to handle.” _

_ Alpha Trion knew your spark well. He had utmost faith that you would be able to bear this burden. _

_ “I had a burden already! Megatron and I were at odds with one another. The bestowing of the Matrix upon me further solidified me as his enemy.” _

_ Yet you gave little protest. _

_ “Because I knew for all the protest I gave, that even while I was struggling, I would rather bear this burden, instead of having another bot try and fail to handle this responsibility. I resolve to do what I can and what I must, but don’t mistake that for complacency. That still does not answer my question - why was it that I was given this burden?” _

_ You believe very little of your own capabilities, but you have seen your Autobots this far, and they shall go further still. Alpha Trion knew it himself - you, a data clerk in the Hall of Records, possessed a far braver and far purer spark than most. You may not believe in yourself, but one day you will surpass even your own highest expectations. _

Optimus closed his optics, fighting against the threat of tears. He focused on multiple things - the hope that one day Megatron may be able to be saved, the relief that Bumblebee had survived his brutal attack… most of all, the sparkling.

He felt his spark warm, knowing that the strong life force kicking around his frame, separate from his own, was safe. How he would do anything to protect them.

_ You fight for a cause that has not yet lost its way in the manner that Megatron’s own cause did. You also fight for a safe home for the sparkling you carry. _

_ “I do. My sparkling is what gives me continued strength. I want to avoid this world as the place for my sparkling to grow up in.” _

_ The plan that Megatron has for the AllSpark is one that it was not designed for. He intends to use it to forge new Cybertronians for his use as an army. The extent of his goal would drain the AllSpark, and therefore Cybertron, of life. You must take it, and keep it out of his reach by any means necessary. _

_ “I know what his plan is, for it was overheard. But Primus, we do not know where it is. If Bumblebee somehow gleaned the coordinates in his last mission, he does not remember.” _

_ Megatron is not quite close to the location, despite the tireless efforts of Shockwave. The AllSpark is in the Sonic Canyons, off a path that has not been traversed in millenia. I will imprint the coordinates in your consciousness, so you may retrieve it before he can. Be quick - find it before Megatron does. _

_ “How should we keep it away from him?” _

_ I cannot tell you how to do so - only that it must be done. _

With a sudden jerk of his frame, Optimus gasped and found himself on his knees. He steadied his inhalation rate and then looked up at the looming orb, watched as the glow subsided. 

Next to him, Windblade got to her pedes and he heard her groan. “Primus almighty,” she whispered, “what happened?”

Optimus got to his pedes as well and stared at the Core, waiting for anything further. When nothing came, he sighed quietly and turned around, seeing that Windblade was looking at him expectantly.

“I will explain on the way back,” he murmured.

.-.-.

Optimus listened with anxious audials as Grimlock gave updates on Bumblebee’s location. He stood behind Grimlock’s seat, staring up at the holographic screens that bore the details about the yellow scout’s vitals and showed his face on the screen, along with a text box.

A short message came through from the scout:  _ AllSpark acquired. _

“Thank Primus,” Optimus said softly as Grimlock opened the communication channel and spoke into it. Optimus only heard a little bit of what he said, but he heard enough to know that Grimlock was directing Bumblebee towards the drop point. Bumblebee sent them messages through his drive, updating them on his location the entire route.

A pit of uneasiness manifested in Optimus’s tanks, as seemed to be the norm. The Prime placed his servo on the back of Grimlock’s seat and curled his digits around it.

“Are you certain that he will be able to access the tunnel to the base from that structure?” 

In response, Grimlock opened another window on the holographic screen and projected a map of Iacon. The edifice that Bumblebee was being directed to blinked a bright red, and then the map zoomed in and showed in intense detail the hidden walls and patches of the floor that would lead underground, and therefore, into a side access route that would take him to the outskirts of Iacon. 

There, a direct route into base.

“It will take him a while to reach us, but it is far safer for him to take the long route with such a precious cargo like this.”

“And his locating beacons are offline?”

“If they were online, you would see it on the screen.”

Right. Optimus had forgotten about that little detail. He kept a watchful eye on the screen, reading each message as Bumblebee sent them through. Slowly the little scout got closer and closer to the drop point.

And then, he stopped. It was a tense few moments as everyone in the communication center waited a little longer than necessary for an update. 

The Prime closed his optics, his spark clenching in fear. Bumblebee would have alerted them if the Decepticons had struck. At least, part of his processor offered up as he remembered Megatron and his handiwork with disgust and shame, he hoped so.

Optimus reopened his optics to see Grimlock send another communication through.

“Bumblebee, you’re late! What’s the hold up?”

A coded message came over the terminal. Grimlock read it, and Optimus saw him raise an optical ridge. “The package is doing what? Talking to you?”

There was a small noise of affirmation.

“I hope it’s telling you to deliver it, pronto. Proceed to the drop point - you were supposed to be there two astrocycles ago.”

Bumblebee said nothing for a few more kliks, but then a message blared ono the screen again.

Bomb.

The Prime felt his spark tense. 

“Bumblebee is still online and communicating,” Grimlock said, his digits flying over the keyboard panel. Then he went still. “Oh. He’s opened his communication lines for us.”

Through the static everyone could hear Starscream’s shrill voice. The last time Optimus had heard it was when the seeker derisively called him a file clerk. His tanks lurched and he gripped the back of Grimlock’s seat.

_ Be safe, Bumblebee. Please. _

“-think the Autobots will be able to hide the AllSpark in that storage superstructure now, do you? Such a shame little scout. Guess I’ll have to hold onto it for you!” 

Everyone in the room could hear the sudden sounds of a scuffle, and then an enraged yell, followed by the room filling with the sound of harsh wind.

“Where is Bee?” 

At the moment that Optimus registered that it was Windblade that was looking for the scout, another message flashed across the screen.

“Bumblebee is en route back to base,” Grimlock read off, squinting at the message, “but he requires assistance. Starscream is pursuing him.”

“Grimlock, update me on his coordinates. I’m going to him,” Windblade said in a tone that did not invite any sort of countering or different opinion, and not even a second later she had taken on her jet mode and flown out of the communications center.

Optimus allowed himself to ex-vent again. He followed Windblade out, following the path she had taken, but stopping short of entering the access tunnel that she’d taken out of the base. 

It seemed a long time - a decacycle, honestly - that he stood there and waited, but the sound of a speeding vehicle and the thrum of jet engines filled his audio receptors. His spark calmed when he finally saw Bumblebee emerge from the shadows of the entrance, the AllSpark cradled firmly in both of his servos. The yellow scout immediately walked over to him and presented the object to him. Optimus took it in his servos and sighed.

“I am glad you did not make it in there, Bumblebee,” Optimus said softly, shifting the AllSpark to one servo and placing his free one on the yellow scout’s shoulder strut. “If you had been in there… I don’t know how we would have gone on without you. We’ve already chanced losing you once.”

Bumblebee stared at him with bright optics, his doorwings lifting up in greeting.

The silence from the scout served to strengthen his guilt instead of assay it.

.-.-.

His recharge was disturbed, skittering motions and something twining with his electromagnetic field. Optimus blinked his optics to focus them better in the darkness of his room.

It was underground. A number of times he’d been roused from his recharge cycles and onlined his optics to see small, nocturnal creatures playing across his armor was far more than he could count. Scans of his systems showed there was movement indeed, but not from the usual nocturnal creatures he had been aware of.

Optimus sat up and tried to feel it again. He fixed his gaze on the door into his tiny quarters, ex-venting and in-venting in a deep, steady rhythm.

The movement returned. Thumps across his middle, almost like gurgles, akin to having tried to digest foul energon but without the intense pain and nausea.

It was the sparkling. They were moving. And they were reaching for him, searching for acknowledgement.

Slowly, Optimus raised a servo and then placed it on the flat of his midsection. He felt the sparkling go still for a few moments, and then resume their movement. Their nascent little field bubbled happily.

Primus.

Optimus smiled brightly, laughed softly, and let out a soft ex-vent. For a fleeting nanoklik, he wanted to wake Megatron up and tell him that he could feel their offspring moving around, take Megatron’s servo and let him feel for himself.

Then, of course, reality hit him again. There was no one else to wake up.

There was a sparkling, a brand new life, moving inside of his frame, knowing nothing other than the fact that they existed, and that he existed. Physically he was not alone, he knew this well - but he’d never felt more alone in his life cycle.

_ You should have been here. You should be feeling this with me. _

A realization hit him a moment after: if the sparkling was moving now, that only meant that their time was more limited than they’d thought. It could be any solar cycle now that he would wake up, and he would see that there was no possible way to continue hiding the sparkling’s existence.

The sparkling pulsed an emotion at him that felt like curiosity. Optimus responded with a similar type of pulse, and smiled when the bitlet gave a flutter.

.-.-.

The space bridge was open. 

In his servos he held the AllSpark.

Were he not currently being fired upon by his former love’s army, he would have taken a moment to pray that this would work. On a battlefield, however, there was no time for moments like these.

Optimus raced toward the space bridge, his spark pulsing wildly with worry and fear. 

_ “Optimus, where do you want the AllSpark to be taken?” _

_ “As far as it can be taken from here. As long as it stays on Cybertron, we won’t have a moment’s rest. I’ll go with it.” _

With hope that the further he got from Megatron, the more time he might have to carry this sparkling and not have to face the Decepticon army in what would become an obvious state. It was selfish, he knew this well - but it was also for the sake of the Autobots.

Suddenly, fire hit his back plating, fritzing his circuits for a moment - but the moment was enough to send him to the ground, front slamming against rubble.

_ No. _

The sparkling didn’t respond to the ping he sent. Fear on a level unlike anything he’d felt before consumed his processor.

Footfalls came much closer, and a smug voice said one word. “Destiny.”

Optimus cracked an optic open and focused on his servos, and the AllSpark that was just out of reach, lying among broken buildings and broken frames as if it belonged there.

In a swift motion, Optimus grabbed the AllSpark and got to his pedes, and before he knew it he was throwing the sacred object into the swirling light of the space bridge as if it were a lob ball, and nothing more.

“Never!”

From behind him, he heard Megatron cry out in despair.

Optimus didn’t see the AllSpark enter the space bridge, but Bumblebee would later tell him that it had made it through, just before the Decepticons began firing on the portal and took it offline. Instead, Optimus turned around and gave Megatron a swift right hook, sending the Decepticon flying into another mound of rubble.

Megatron looked up at him, an acidic glare on his faceplates as he stood up and aimed his fusion cannon directly at Optimus’s chassis.

Before Optimus could react, Windblade and Ratchet tackled the warlord, shouting as Megatron resisted and threw them off.

The last that Optimus saw of the Decepticons was the entire ranks following Megatron as he called for retreat. He could see Megatron in the distance, his arm raised as his army followed his lead and vacated the area.

“Optimus, get over here.”

The Prime let Ratchet handle him, trying to calm his sudden wave of intense nausea. “I fell. On my front.”

“I know. I saw. That’s why I’m looking you over.”

“Is the sparkling-” Optimus began to ask in undertone, but he was interrupted by Ratchet plugging a diagnostic cable into his side, effectively silencing him. Optimus felt the scan run its course, and watched as Ratchet pulled the diagnostic cable away. 

“You would’ve been in a lot of pain if something had happened to them,” the medic conveyed in a voice that was both firm and soft. “They’re fine. Here,” Ratchet said, winding one of Optimus’s arms around his shoulder struts. “I’ll give you a thorough examination at base.”

Relief in his spark, Optimus let himself be led away, smiling when Windblade walked alongside Ratchet, and Bumblebee took Optimus’s other arm around his shoulder struts. He groaned with the effort it took, as his frame cried out in pain and shock - but it was something that he could live with for now.

The most important thing to him in that moment, was that the sparkling was still alive.

A memory of the AllSpark flashed across his processor - and Optimus stopped in his guided tracks, letting Bumblebee and Ratchet remove their arms from him. He turned around and looked at the ruins of the space bridge, his spark aching at the thought of the ancient artifact lost somewhere in the vast expanse of space and time.

The broken space bridge stared back at him, asking him the same question he now asked himself: had he done what Primus had intended for him to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Personal life info-dump ahead:** My 91yo maternal grandfather has been diagnosed with cancer. We are praying for the best, but know it is a matter of time. On a less sad but still a little frustrating note, my laptop passed onto the AllSpark last night (I am posting this using a friend's tablet that is rather limited). I may be a little slower than I'd like at writing/posting the next chapter as I am without access to a functional computer, and because I will be spending more time with my grandfather when I am able to. Any prayers and well wishes for him are very much appreciated.
> 
> To everyone who reads this, I am very grateful for your readership and your patience as I try to handle life and writing.


	4. Parturition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for **description of emergence** in this chapter.

It began as the pools of energon in the Sonic Canyons inexplicably stopped flowing. A decacycle after they had been reported to cease flow, a new report came back from Windblade - the pools were now dried up.

Optimus knew well enough from prior research during off-time at the Hall that the energon pools had never dried up - at least, not in the millions of stellar cycles of written record that existed. He tried to think of it and write it off as a one-time event, a freak occurrence. The back recesses of his processor begged to differ, telling him that it was not mere coincidence that this ever-flowing pool had gone dry after he’d sent the AllSpark through the space bridge.

Part of him wondered if it had been the Decepticons hoarding all the energon they could find, but it seemed that Megatron was just as perplexed about the whole event. He had been sighted at the pools of energon, looking absolutely baffled at the dry poolbeds.

Out to the west, the Manganese Mountain range was afflicted with tremors that sent rocks tumbling down the slopes, endangering those that resided at the base of the mountains. Dust storms plagued the Hydrax Plateau, which had also seen its own sea of energon mysteriously disappear over the span of a few solar cycles. 

Bot-made disasters were ones he was becoming a little more adept at handling, with the war continuing to rage. Natural phenomena such as this was far, far out of his league.

_ Primus forgive my trespasses.  _

Optimus looked out over the bombed out remnants of this particular district of Iacon, the handiwork of Starscream and his Seekers, and couldn’t even find it in himself to be angry and swear that they would pay for the sparks that had been extinguished by their actions. He was tired, as if he’d been carrying this weight for the entirety of his lifecycle but hadn’t noticed it until just now.

In the distance, Bumblebee emerged from a pile of rubble and shook his helm. Even from this length, Optimus could see the upset look on the scout’s face.

None. No survivors.

Optimus hung his helm and sighed, and then looked back up and gestured for the scout to return. Bumblebee did so, trekking his way up a mountain of rubble onto the lone highway that still stood. His bright blue optics looked at Optimus, and one of the doorwings on his back tilted upward.

“I know. There was nothing more we could do,” Optimus confessed, sighing. “But we had to hope that even one may have survived.”

Bumblebee nodded, and the scout placed a servo on Optimus’s arm.

“Come. Let us return to base,” Optimus said quietly as both mechs took on their vehicular forms and headed towards the outskirts of Iacon. It was a silent, solemn drive, fires still crackling around them and sirens in the distance, alerting now-gone citizens to take shelter.

There was nothing more they could do, as he’d said.

The mourning was cut very short by blips appearing on his radar - Starscream was back again.

Bumblebee seemed to have gotten the same readings, as he stalled for a moment - and then sped up, prompting Optimus to do the same.

Starscream and two of his fellow Seekers converged on them, blasters firing.

_ Primus, please let us survive this. _

His spark pulsed frantically, legitimately afraid for the safety of himself, the scout, and the sparkling he carried. The highway wound around for a few kliks as they tried to evade the Seekers, but then they reached a long stretch where it only headed straight ahead with no turns.

And the opportunity was granted, and taken, for the Seekers to overcome them. One of them - Optimus had no idea who - fired a missile. The weapon headed straight for Bumblebee.

Instinct took over and Optimus cried, “Bumblebee, watch out!” as he swerved into the scout, pushing him out of the way, and then fell back, allowing the missile to miss them.

Only for it to land directly in front of them and implant itself into the highway.

Both mechs took on their bipedal modes and leapt off the bridge at the same moment the missile exploded, the force throwing them further away than they would have been able to land unaided. 

Starscream’s voice rang out in the distance.  _ “After them!” _

In the time that it took for the explosion to cease ringing in his audio receptors and for him to reorient himself, the other two Seekers had caught up with them and taken on their own bipedal modes. Optimus lifted his helm and opened his optics as they landed on the ground, blasters at the ready.

The deep purple one - Slipstream, his processor offered - smirked at him. “Nowhere left to run, Autobots.” Behind her, Thundercracker mean-mugged them.

Both Optimus and Bumblebee began backing up, but then Optimus heard a noise behind them. He turned around in time to see Starscream in bipedal form, his kibble shifting into place. The Seeker sneered at them. “How wonderful to be the one to destroy you and your little mascot, Prime!”

In response, Optimus heard Bumblebee bring his stingers online. Taking heed from the scout, Optimus activated his energon axe. Starscream yelled as he charged at him, and from behind, Optimus could hear the sounds of conflict as Bumblebee was attacked by Slipstream and Thundercracker. 

Racing forward, he met Starscream and swung his axe at the Seeker, who dodged it and lifted up into the air and gave a quick turn that ended up with a pede meeting the side of his helm, knocking him over. The Prime lay for a moment on the ground before getting up, groaning in pain as he briefly checked for the sparkling.

There was no immense wave of pain, anything that would signal that the sparkling was in immediate danger, but he still worried.

Sudden movement caught his optics, and he looked up in time to see that Starscream had taken flight again - but was still in bipedal mode, hovering in the air with his thrusters. The Seeker made a noise from deep within his chassis.

Optimus knew.

He activated his shield the moment that Starscream let out a sonic scream, the soundwaves battering at barrier he’d put up. Optimus closed his optics against the attack and hid as much of himself behind the insignia-shaped shield as he could, waiting for the Seeker to cease his assault. His audio receptors rang with the sound, overwhelming his processor, and making the sparkling jolt in surprise and shock.

Then it became quiet, and Optimus opened his optics and peeked out from around the shield to see Starscream on the ground with his blasters now pointed at him.

There was his chance. Optimus took his vehicular form but kept the shield in front of his form, charging Starscream as the Seeker continued to fire at him. The closer that he got, the more rapid that the blasts to the shield came, and he wondered for a brief moment why Starscream didn’t just lift off of the ground.

It didn’t matter after another moment - he hit Starscream, sending the Seeker crumpling to the ground. Taking on his bipedal mode, he stared down at Starscream, who was lying on the ground and jolting, grasping at his own chassis.

Curling his servos into fists, Optimus turned around to look in Bumblebee’s direction, meeting the scout’s optics before looking at the other two Seekers, who both cowered slightly.

“This fight is over,” he said firmly, pulling himself to his full height. “Leave.”

Bumblebee moved where he was so he stood behind Slipstream and Thundercracker, who both gave the scout a glare before they moved in Optimus’s direction. The Prime stepped aside and watched them, ready to bring his shield back online and activate his axe in case they tried to ambush him from a closer distance.

Thankfully, the two Seekers merely grabbed Starscream and walked off with him, disappearing into the shadows.

Optimus stood there and waited a few moments longer, listening for the sounds of thrusters and frames taking flight so they could be sure they were gone. When the noises had become more faint, and he saw the dots in the sky receding, he turned around and faced Bumblebee, nodding at him, before turning his attention to the gleaming, white statue that was fallen to his side.

“Do you know where we are, Bumblebee?” he asked softly.

The scout warbled inquisitively at him, doorwings flicking up and down as he walked over. 

“This was a statue of the great Prima,” Optimus answered his own question, shifting his stance so he looked behind him, at the gathering of stone seats that were in a disarray. “And that is where the Senate used to meet. We stand in what was once the Grand Imperium.”

Walking forward, Optimus came out from the shadows of the broken edifice and into the starlight. He lowered his gaze, looking down at the carved circle in the ground.

“So much of our world has been destroyed,” he said softly, closing his optics, unsure if Bumblebee was even listening at this point. “Cybertron is dying. I fear Windblade was right,” he reopened his optics and lifted his helm to look at the stars hung in the firmament. “ I never should have sent the AllSpark away from Cybertron; I felt there was no choice.”

His sensors pinged him, noting that Bumblebee was still close and that the scout had reached a servo out towards him. Turning, Optimus sighed. “But I was wrong.” He placed a servo on the other bot’s shoulder strut, looking Bumblebee in his optics. “We must get the AllSpark back, Bumblebee. There is still time to set things right.”

Bumblebee tilted his helm at him, his right doorwing shifting with the movement. 

“We have to leave Cybertron to search for the AllSpark,” Optimus said, answering the question that he knew was on Bumblebee’s processor. “There is a cargo hauler that has been unused for stellar cycles. It is our best hope of getting to the stars.”

The scout warbled at him again.

“I admit, this is also for selfish purposes,” the Prime said, his voice quieting further. “I know I cannot keep hiding the truth from the Decepticons much longer.” He placed a servo on his middle, watching Bumblebee’s optics track the movement. “I do not know how long it will take to find the AllSpark, but the further we travel from Cybertron, the better it will be.”

There was a look in Bumblebee’s optics; as if the scout were asking him the same questions that Windblade did. 

“It is for our safety. As much as my spark wishes to tell Megatron, it would not be wise. I know he will find out one day, but I hope that when that day comes, sense can be talked into him. I have no hope for it now.”

.-.-.

The cargo hauler had been informally nicknamed the  _ Ark _ as a signifier of its massive size. Optimus wasn’t very sure who had coined the name, but by the time it made its way to him, it seemed that everyone else was set on calling it that. So, he did.

Under cover of night, every bot that was going on the expedition was settling into their temporary quarters. Or, was supposed to be, rather. As he looked at the crew roster, he noted that there was someone that hadn’t indicated check-in as of yet.

Optimus made his way over to the entrance of the ship, hoping that the scout was merely running late and not caught in something serious. The entrance ramp was deployed, and to his relief, he saw Bumblebee at the end, in an embrace with Windblade.

The Prime paused and smiled briefly at the scene, before turning away.

He had wanted Windblade to come along. She, however, had been insistent that she had to stay behind. Not even Bumblebee seemed to sway her, so of course there was nothing that he could do.

She swore she would find them again. He hoped that she would be able to.

Looking at the roster again, he saw the little indicator light beside Bumblebee’s assigned quarters light up merrily.

They would take off very soon. Optimus went into his quarters and sat on the berth, looking at the room that would be his home - and his sparkling’s home as well - for the foreseeable future. By default, as Prime and captain of the ship, he’d been given the largest quarters. Even then, the place still felt very small.

A wave of exhaustion overcame him; he lay down and fixed his gaze at a point on the ceiling.

There was always that pressure to be an example for the rest of the Autobots. Here, in the privacy of his quarters, he could let exhaustion overwhelm him.

The sparkling stirred softly, the first time for the solar cycle. Little flutters thumped along his middle as they stretched.

Sighing, Optimus placed both of his servos over his abdominal plating. “We will be fine. I’m sure of it,” he said quietly, more for his sake than for the sparkling.

After a klik of silence, Ratchet pinged him over his communication line.

::Unless you’d like us to take off without you on the bridge, better get up here::

Optimus moved his servos to his helm and sent an affirmative ping, getting to his pedes and walking out to the bridge. The crew roster had been moved so it was now placed on his captain’s chair. He leaned down and grabbed it, again making sure that everyone had indicated check-in, and then looked up at the handful of bots that were there with him.

Grimlock turned around in his seat and looked at him, as did Arcee. She smiled at him and nodded.

To his side, Ratchet gruffed and crossed his arms over his chassis.

“Wheeljack confirmed that our systems are ready,” Arcee said. “I’ll send out a ship-wide announcement when we lift off.”

“What about our energon storage?” Optimus asked, holding up a servo briefly. “How much do we have for the crew?”

“At best estimates, about twelve decacycles.” 

That was better than Optimus had thought, but it was still not enough. He nodded once and sat down. “Send the announcement and tell everyone to brace for the lift off sequence. Grimlock, have Teletraan-1 begin scans for the AllSpark’s location.”

“Scanning unto starlight, as you wish,” Grimlock affirmed. 

There was a quiet klik as both Grimlock and Arcee set about their assigned tasks.

The rumble of the ship’s engine onlining was strangely comforting. To his side, Ratchet took one of the empty seats nearby and they waited.

“Commencing lift off in three,” Arcee started, “two… one.”

Optimus braced himself, closing his optics and tightening his grip on the armrests of the captain’s chair, and he counted down with each deep in-vent he took. The waking nausea had ceased plaguing him a few decacycles ago, as Ratchet said that it would, but the motion of the Ark as it took off from Cybertron and hurtled through the layers of atmosphere had brought it back with a vengeance.

::Feeling okay there?::

::Yes. I will be fine::

::Try not to purge right now, don’t want your upchuck floating around before we can get the gravity on::

::Duly noted, Ratchet::

The shaking motion of the Ark seemed to last a decacycle, but before Optimus knew it, the artificial gravity was switched on, and they were no longer in the grip of Cybertron’s pull. He slumped forward and gasped as he willed his tanks to settle down.

Ratchet’s servo - how had the medic gotten out of his seat so quickly? - appeared on his shoulder strut, guiding him to sit up straight again. “When you have a moment, meet me in the med bay.”

Optimus composed himself and then nodded, watching the medic head off. He turned to look at Grimlock and Arcee, and asked, “What trajectory does Teletraan-1 have us on?”

Grimlock answered. “We are currently heading for the Delphi system. At our current rate, we will be there in a decacycle.”

There were some planets in the system that were rumored to have deposits of energon. The Prime nodded and added, “Have Teletraan scan for energon as well. We will need to stockpile as much as we can.”

“Can do.”

Optimus got up from his seat and headed for the medical bay, noticing along the way as everyone left their assigned quarters and began milling about. He entered the medical bay that Ratchet had set up and was greeted with the medic’s servos guiding him to sit on the nearest berth. 

“Sit here. Time for your injection.”

The Prime dutifully held one of his arms out and looked away as Ratchet dug between armor plates, wincing as he felt the pressure and then the prick of the needle that had become all-too-familiar. Optimus closed his optics and sighed as he felt the rush of medication course through his frame.

“We left Cybertron just in time.”

Out of the corner of his optics, he could see the medic turn to look at him, and then saw Ratchet’s nod.

“I’d say we did. Megatron’s gonna stop at nothing to get the AllSpark back.”

Ratchet removed the needle and Optimus held his arm to his side, rubbing over the seam where the dose had been administered. “The sparkling is also growing bigger by the solar cycle,” Optimus said. “The time that I had to hide my condition is decreasing and of course, it was best that we left.” He paused a moment and then lowered his voice. “I know that some are starting to guess my condition.”

The sparkling fluttered in response to his voice, warmth flooding the creator-creation bond. He closed his optics and savored the feeling, smiling softly. The bitlet was getting stronger, their consciousness more aware by the passing klik.

In his time in the Hall, helping someone find a datapad they needed for whatever purposes, he savored the feeling of seeing them react to newfound knowledge. The sparkling would be new to everything, and everything would be new to them. He would learn everything through their optics, and how he looked forward to it. Optimus reopened his optics after a klik and looked at the medic. “I need to let everyone on this ship know. There’s no possible way we could hide a sparkling on board.”

Ratchet nodded and crossed his arms over his chassis. “Were you thinking of a ship-wide announcement?”

“Yes,” he nodded in response, “but not over the intercom system. I would prefer to see everyone on the bridge.”

.-.-.

When Optimus ascended the dais on which his captain’s chair - his Prime’s chair, to be more correct - he looked around the assembled crowd. There was that part of him that sensed that they already knew, or could make an educated guess about the subject. There were a few stares that didn’t quite meet his optics, and others seemed to be intently avoiding looking at him altogether.

They definitely knew. Or at least, had an idea.

The Prime made a noise in his chassis, getting everyone to look at him “I know there has been a bit of guesswork going around in regards to some changes that I seem to be undergoing,” he began, slowly, watching the movement from the Autobots before him. “I will not prevaricate any longer; I am sparked. I am about halfway through my carrying cycle, and given the primary task for our journey, I expect that the sparkling will emerge during our voyage.”

Optimus paused to read the room, blue optics landing on every bot for a brief moment before flitting onto the next. Most didn’t seem to be shocked at the revelations; if he were to be honest, they seemed to have an aura of satisfaction among themselves, as if they’d long suspected it, and now delighted in the confirmation.

“Deciding to reveal the news was a difficult decision at first. However, it did turn out to be the  _ only _ option. There would not have been a way to hide the existence of a sparkling from the occupants of this ship.” The Prime smiled a little ruefully and then cleared his vocalizer. “I will be happy to answer any questions that I can.”

Arcee’s servo raised. Optimus nodded at her, prompting the femme to ask the question that he was sure everyone else had. “It’s Megatron’s sparkling, isn’t it? He is the sire?”

Optimus nodded once, and then there were a litany of murmurs that followed from the gathered bots. It seemed that they also knew that fact, and only wanted confirmation. 

“Megatron is the sire of the sparkling. At a time, we wanted nothing more than to have a sparkling of our own. I only regret that this must be kept a closely-guarded secret from the Decepticons. We cannot afford to let this reach the Decepticons.” Optimus paused and closed his optics briefly, feeling the sparkling’s nascent electromagnetic field reach for him. “Were he to find out about this, it would likely endanger us all. He will stop at absolutely nothing to get his servos on the sparkling.”

Everyone gathered on the bridge looked amongst themselves, low chatter in the air. Optimus reopened his optics and reset his vocalizer, getting everyone’s attention. When they looked at him again, he repeated for emphasis, “There is to be no talk of this outside of this ship. Am I understood?”

The gathered audience nodded.

“This has to be kept secret, until it no longer can. Until then, act as if everything is normal amongst our ranks.”

.-.-.

“Do you know yet?”

Optimus looked out of the window of the observation deck, the stars flying by as the Ark soared to distances he never thought he might travel. He could see from reflections off of the thick glass pane that Wheeljack had spoken the inquiry. Next to Wheeljack, Bumblebee stood and flicked his doorwings in greeting.

The Prime smiled and turned to face the other two mechs. “Not yet. Ratchet has told me that at this stage, he can let me know, but I am considering waiting until the sparkling emerges.”

“Well, what do you think you’re having?”

Optimus narrowed his optics slightly at Wheeljack. The repeated question was a little off for the mech, and when he looked Bumblebee and saw a mischievous little glint in the yellow mech’s optics, he knew that something was amiss.

“Wheeljack, what is going on?”

“Nothing!” Wheeljack replied, a little quickly and defensively.

Bumblebee’s face grew even more mischievous. The ‘bot seemed to realize his faceplates were betraying him, so he turned away as to not face Optimus.

He caught on. Optimus stared at the engineer and replied with another question. “How many are involved in this?”

“What? There’s no betting pool going on, I’m just cur-”

Optimus interrupted Wheeljack’s flow, unable to help the knowing smile that crossed his faceplates. “I never specified that there was a betting pool going on.”

A look of realization came over Wheeljack. The mech’s back fins drooped, and he sighed in defeat. “Most of the ship. Over half are betting it’s a mech, and then we all started betting on the alt mode too. If it’s gonna be a grounder, flier, triple-changer, whatnot.”

“And what are you betting?”

“Mech, triple-changer. Bee wagered on femme, flier.”

The sparkling gave a small jolt across the fledgling creator-creation bond. Optimus placed his servo over his middle, tapping a digit in acknowledgement, and the sparkling’s field calmed down. “In normal circumstances, I would be staunchly against the idea of gambling, especially if the activity involves myself and my sparkling. However, for the sake of crew morale, I will allow it.”

Both Wheeljack’s back fins and Bumblebee’s doorwings perked up.

“This does not mean I will reveal what I believe the sparkling is, nor does it mean that I will select to know at my next examination.”

He had to admit, he took a great amount of pleasure in seeing the looks of defeat on both mech’s faceplates. No, he wouldn’t partake in this, even by telling them what he thought the sparkling would be. He didn’t want to be responsible for any bets that would be placed based solely on his intuition.

When Wheeljack and Bumblebee left, Optimus looked out at the stars once more and placed his digits on the glass, imagining a future time that he could show his sparkling the universe, where he could see the wonderment in their optics.

The sparkling moved a little, stalled for a moment, and then flared their field out again, greeting him merrily. They seemed to like the idea.

.-.-.

Optimus had settled into a rhythm aboard the ship, and the time passed by in such an uneventful manner that made him forget just  _ how much _ time was really passing by. Every solar cycle blurred into one large lump, so he was particularly shocked the night cycle that he woke up to particularly intense flutters along the lower part of his belly, and noticed the very definite, very prominent curve that had taken residence there.

He knew it was coming, but it was a strange sight, seeing the physical manifestation of carriage on his frame now. Not even adjusting his stance, or writing off changes to his form as being a “trick of the light” could help brush this off.

The sparkling squirmed, pulsing its little electromagnetic field at him. Curiosity and attention-seeking, nascent awareness as their consciousness continued to develop further. For what was the umpteenth time, it awed him that this was happening - his frame was creating this new little being that would grow to have hopes and dreams and sparkache and a life all of their own.

Slowly, he placed both of his servos on his swollen middle, gasping softly as the bitlet made a series of very hard thumps against his palms.

_ Hello to you as well, little one. It’s me. _

As he did most times that he was not occupied with tasks, he thought of Megatron and how the gladiator would have reacted to this entire situation. He knew with certainty that Megatron would not have been able to keep his servos off of his frame, rough and pitted digits stroking along the newfound curves and the swell of his middle that held their growing child. 

And he imagined Megatron talking to their sparkling. In nights together, Megatron held onto him tightly, as if Optimus were his anchor. How he loved Megatron’s voice and words, whispering sweet things to him. Megatron would have whispered his hopes and dreams to the bitlet, telling them that he hoped they would be a fierce fighter like him, and steadfast and as beautiful as their carrier.

His spark ached.

The bitlet reached out for him with their field, an almost inquisitive tinge to their act. Optimus sighed quietly, moving one servo from his middle and placing it behind his frame, flat on the berth so it gave him some support.

“I gave him a chance. But he decided that his cause was worth more than myself and the future we had envisioned. And I suppose in a sense, I am guilty of the same, as if I were not so loyal to my cause I may have told him about you.”

There was a bit of a pause, and then the sparkling moved. The sadness weighed heavy on his spark, and he decided that it was not the time to be upset. “Now that you’re more active, I suppose I should start thinking of a name for you. Don’t you agree?”

The sparkling kicked in response. 

Optimus got off of his berth and headed over to the small shelf that had been built into the wall opposite his sleeping slab, grunting with the effort it took to lean down and fetch the datapad he’d set aside. He activated the screen, and the list of designations he really liked blinked up at him.

“These names come from Cybertronian mythos and personal anecdotes,” the Prime said quietly, not doubting that the bitlet could hear his voice, though they were obviously unable to understand what he was saying. “I was and still can be quite a voracious reader, and as a youngling I found myself attracted to the stories of the Thirteen Primes, and the Primes that came after them. Of course, little did I know,” he smiled ruefully, “that I would later be one among their ranks.”

Fluttering motions, and then something small jabbed into his intakes. A servo, he presumed.

Optimus spent the night reading through the names, indicating with his stylus the names that the sparkling reacted to the most.

.-.-.

“You’re not refueling.”

Ratchet scoffed and simply shook the full cube of energon at Optimus. The Prime sighed and grabbed the cube and downed the second portion, but once he was done he reiterated his point. “I haven’t seen you take your ration this cycle. What is going on?”

“I took mine earlier.”

Optimus narrowed his optics and tilted his helm minutely. “You’re lying. You have a telling notion.”

“Oh really, what is it then?”

“Do you think I would tell you? You would attempt to hide it in the future.”

The medic glared at him for a moment, and then sighed and placed a servo on his helm. “Fine, fine. Most of the crew volunteered to have a solar cycle where we give our ration to you so we’d keep our energon supply up.”

Optimus stared at the medic. He began to regret not taking charge of energon inventory and leaving it all to Ratchet and Grimlock.

“This cycle was mine. Grimlock’s was the solar cycle previous, and Bumblebee’s is tomorrow.”

“Ratchet, you and the rest of the crew should not be going to this extent. I can do my best to survive on just one-”

“Optimus, you’re fueling for two. If I just let you have one ration, your sparkling would start eating away at your internals to keep being fed and creating their frame. You need the two rations. You’re no use to us if your internals start getting chewed on.”

The sparkling kicked fiercely enough that Optimus put his servo to his back and sighed, looking down at the very prominent swell of his middle. “I don’t want to be responsible for anyone feeling fatigued, and possibly needing to come to the medical ward, because they sacrificed their ration of energon.”

“They’ll be fine. If they start getting faint, we usually pool some of our own rations to give them something.”

Feeling his tanks lurch at the thought, Optimus opened his mouth as if to protest, but then found himself quieting down at the sharp look that Ratchet gave him. The medic continued, “We’ll stop the every solar cycle trade off after the bitlet emerges.”

His mind rested a little bit easier. The Prime still said, “I would rather the practice not have been necessary in the first place.”

“Well, unless you have a recipe for an artificial energon that won’t blow up or trigger an aggression response, this is the way it’s gonna be.” Ratchet crossed his arms over his chassis and leaned against a counter across from the medical berth. “Of course it’ll help some when we next find a place to sit down at where they have energon we can take.”

Optimus nodded. “Teletraan-1 is still looking. We found the one satellite moon and managed to replenish. Hopefully we can find another again.”

“Hopefully.” The medic then looked up. “And hopefully we get the AllSpark back soon and can go back to Cybertron. Still not used to the artificial gravity we have here.”

“Neither am I.” Optimus got off the berth, holding his hand out to stop Ratchet from coming to his aid. “I am fine, I can do this. I will be on the bridge.”

He walked out into the hallway, and was thankful that no one was around when he stopped and had to press his helm against the wall, giving a controlled, deep ex-vent as he ran a check of his systems. The message popped up at him, cheerily telling him he was at nineteen percent.

The early morning had passed uneventfully as he’d been in his quarters, trying to get some more rest for his helm, when his visual field blared a warning at him. He’d almost gone to Ratchet right away, but then he read the warning text, and then sighed and grabbed his first portion of energon and a report from Grimlock that was waiting for him.

He could bother Ratchet with it later. If he went then, Ratchet would have kept him in the medical bay and ordered a stop for his duties until at least a few solar cycles after emergence.

Optimus entered the bridge and headed for his captain’s chair, slowly lowering himself into it. “Grimlock,” he asked softly, the issue of energon still nagging at his mind. “What is Teletraan-1’s status on the search for energon?”

“We’ve detected a faint signal of energon, but we’re at least three solar cycles from reaching the planet even at our highest speed.”

The Prime nodded. Three solar cycles and they could replenish some of their fuel. He checked around at the bots gathered on the bridge, making sure they were performing their assigned tasks. Some of them met his optics and nodded at him; he didn’t miss the curious glances they gave him.

Optimus pulled up the radar on his nearest screen, scanning the immediate vicinity for any threats. Small points of light ahead of them noted that they were coming upon an asteroid field. He sent a ping to Arcee and Deadlock, casting the radar to the screen between them so they could see what he saw.

There was a datapad with another report that was handed to him. He accepted it and turned the screen on.

Another wave of pain hit him, and he put one of his servos around the armrest of his seat and curled his digits into it, trying his best to focus on the text in front of him.

It was simply an update from Wheeljack about the status of all of the experiments that Optimus had asked him to pursue. The drones he was trying to put together were structurally sound, but there was still doubt about their ability to carry out tasks that he asked of them.

“Hey Optimus!”

The Prime turned to his side and smiled at Bumblebee, nodding at the scout. It had been about a decacycle since Wheeljack and Ratchet had pronounced the procedure a success, and after a mandatory three solar cycles of complete silence, Bumblebee was back to talking everyone’s audio receptors off. “Hello Bumblebee. I believe you are scheduled to take over Deadlock’s shift in about ten cycles. What brings you here?”

“Nothing much,” the scout said, leaning on the one open armrest of Optimus’s chair, wings shifting up and down. “I think I’m just popping in to see how big you keep getting. That bitlet really doesn’t want out, do they?”

Optimus had a soft chuckle at that as his other servo came to rest on the swell of his midsection. “It is all up to them at this point in time.” He shifted how he sat in the chair, feeling the pressure of the bitlet in his pelvic struts. “I toyed with the idea of having Ratchet induce emergence, but I feel it would be rude to do so.”

“Yeah, that’d be kicking the bitlet out before they’re ready.”

Before Optimus could verbally agree, Grimlock turned to him, optics a little worried. “We have a communication request from Cybertron. It is Windblade and Perceptor. They’re requesting a visual.” 

They all had a right to be worried now. Optimus had left them with instructions that they were to send short, parsed messages via textual communication, only resorting to voice or visual if it was a dire situation. 

He stood up slowly, avoiding Bumblebee’s offered helpful servo, and made his way over to the console where Grimlock was. “Audio only. No visual, unless absolutely necessary.”

Grimlock sent the order to them, and then a klik afterwards, Windblade’s voice filtered through.

_ “Is Optimus there?” _

“I am here, Windblade,” Optimus said. Grimlock made a motion as if to stand up and offer the seat to him, but Optimus placed one of his servos on the other mech’s shoulder strut and none-too-gently forced him to sit back down. “What is your report?”

Perceptor’s voice came through.  _ “I am apologetic about this, Optimus. We wish we had learned of this earlier, but we have some news regarding Megatron.” _

Optimus’s energon ran cold, and he could feel the stares of everyone else on the bridge on him. He composed himself, took a nanoklik, and then replied. “What has happened to him?”

Windblade spoke.  _ “A few decacycles ago, Megatron left Cybertron in search of the AllSpark himself. We only just found this out within the last solar cycle when Perceptor hacked a Decepticon communication channel. We didn’t find out more than that, but at the speed that most of the Decepticon ships can travel it might be a matter of time before they catch up to the Ark.” _

His processor spun wildly. His former beloved hadn’t been on Cybertron for a while. For all he knew, Megatron could be far ahead of them, making further headway on locating the AllSpark before them. 

“Do you know if he took anyone with him?”

_ “Regrettably, we do not know,”  _ Perceptor replied.  _ “We have still seen Starscream, Shockwave, and Soundwave, and most of the other mid-level Decepticons on Cybertron as they attempt to repair the space bridge that was brought down by you, Optimus. He may be alone in the stars, or he may be alone in commanding a contingent of troops.” _

Wonderful. That would just be what they needed. For Megatron and an army of Decepticon troops to beat them to the AllSpark, or for them to find the Ark and storm it. There would be no way he could hide their sparkling from their sire at that point.

Optimus closed his optics and tightened the grip of his digits on the edge of the console. The new wave of pain that crested through his back and pelvic struts was far, far more intense than the last one had been. “Acknowledged. Thank you both for the information.”

The communication link shut off. A moment later, Optimus slowly lowered his frame so he knelt down next to the console and let out a low groan. He could feel the worried glance that Grimlock gave him.

“Optimus?” Bumblebee’s voice filtered into his processor, worried. “Optimus, are you okay?”

He shook his helm in the negative and further tightened his grip on the console, a small part of his processor wondering if he’d made impressions on the metal. He truly did not want to get up from his kneeling position - it was possibly the most comfortable he’d been all solar cycle. “No.” he said, voice strained. “I have been in emergence for a while by now.”

The electromagnetic fields of everyone around him flared outwards in unrestrained panic. Then he felt two - no, three - different sets of servos grab onto him and haul him to his pedes.

“You shouldn’t be here!” Grimlock said in a loud, admonishing voice. “You need to go to the medical bay.”

“How long has it been?” Arcee asked. “When did it start?”

He knew they were going to panic even more so when he confessed. Optimus closed his optics and grit his dentae. “It woke me out of my recharge sequence.”

And he had been right. He heard the rest of the Autobots on the bridge start chattering, and then a moment later he heard a familiar voice shouting.

“-don’t believe you Optimus, you went  _ this long  _ in emergence and  _ didn’t think to tell me?! _ ”

Optimus opened an optic and looked down where he saw the medic transferring Optimus’s weight from Grimlock and Bumblebee to himself only. “I said nothing at first because I knew I could handle some of my duties during it. The pain was not so terrible at the start.”

“But like all pain,  _ it gets worse if you leave it untreated, _ ” Ratchet snapped as he hauled him out of the bridge and down the hall towards the medical bay. “What if it had lasted any longer?” Optimus let himself be handled as he was pulled into the medical bay and guided to the berth, watching warily as Ratchet pulled up medical drips and other various machines whose functions he wasn’t entirely sure of. “If it had lasted any longer would you have liked to push that bitlet out in your seat, or the filthy-as-frag floor?”

The Prime shook his helm. “I would have ordered that Grimlock take command in my stead and then I would have come here.”

“Yeah you say that right now as I’m sticking needles in your protoform.” As if to emphasize his point, Ratchet did exactly that, and gave a little scoff when Optimus made a pained noise. “Oh please, you’re gonna be in worse pain as the cycle goes. While I’m getting this slag set up, run your scan and tell me your number.”

Optimus did so, and read out the result. “I am at thirty-one percent dilation.”

That gave the medic some pause. Ratchet made a ‘hmph’ noise and then pointed to the upper half of the berth, motion for Optimus to lie down. “For something that started more than half a solar cycle ago, that’s slower than I would’ve thought you’d be at.”

Another spasm rocked through Optimus’s frame, lasting only the few moments that he took to hiss between his dentae and arch his lower back minutely. When it passed him by, he sighed in relief. “I believe I did read in the datapads that for a first emergence, it can take some time.”

“You’ll probably have the dubious honor of the longest emergence cycle I’ve attended.”

The thought of it made Optimus shudder. “Primus, no. Don’t say that.”

“Well, just did, and sorry if I did jinx it. Here,” Ratchet slipped a mesh pillow underneath the Prime’s helm. “Got a couple of spares if you need ‘em after all, just let me know when. And here,” the medic set up the energon drip. “It’s gonna be a long wait.”

Optimus sighed in exhaustion as the cool mesh gave him some relief. He looked at the medic, blinking at him. “Will I be allowed to go fetch a datapad or two from my quarters?”

“Nope, don’t want you getting off that berth. Which ones do you want?”

“My datapad on Cybertronian mythologies, and the one on astrophysics.”

“We can take you out of the hall, but we can’t take the hall outta you. Fine, I’ll be right back.”

He watched the medic leave the room and then cast his gaze at the ceiling. His processor wanted to think about the duties he still had to perform, but he shunted those thoughts aside. There was a much bigger task to be done.

A bit suddenly, his frame seemed to realize the extent of his exhaustion. Optimus sank back against the mesh cushion and thought that he should ask Ratchet for another one when he came back. He closed his optics and sighed deeply. 

The sparkling stirred and stretched, field flaring out anxiously. He placed both of his servos on the swell of his middle and felt the sparkling’s anxiety ebb away to faint waves of apprehension at the touch.

_ We will see each other soon, little one. I am anxious too. _

.-.-.

Everything hurt. The cables in his neck and his processor ached fiercely, he curled his pedes, his intakes hitched and Primus how he wanted this to end now. 

He thought he knew pain very well in the course of the war. The times he’d been shot at, twisted something, or had a blade run through some part of his frame were incalculable, but nothing in the universe could have prepared him for just how painful emergence was at its peak. 

The wires hooked into his access panel impeded his movement. There was an overwhelming urge to turn onto his side and curl into himself, a primal urge and possibly a position that was used in eons long gone to ward off some of the painful spasms he was feeling - but the wires impeded that ability as well.

So here he was. Optimus’s intakes stalled and he curled his servos into fists as another contraction overwhelmed his frame. How he wanted to cry out and hold onto someone - preferably Megatron - but it was an impossibility.

He counted it down -  _ one, two, three, four, Primus above let this end, seven, eight… _

It subsided. He ex-vented heavily, in relief.

“That one lasted a klik. Had five kliks between your last one and this one.” Ratchet was there, and Optimus was only slightly aware of the medic fumbling with the wires that were linked to the access panel. “You’re at seventy-nine percent dilation.”

_ That’s it? _

Optimus groaned and pressed the back of his helm against the berth, resisting the urge to cry out in frustration. “I was hoping that the number would be much more than that.”

Ratchet clicked his glossa against his dentae. “They all say that, and then they hit the transition stage. This thing there,” he gently poked at the energon drip, “has some pain reliever mixed in, so imagine how bad this would be without it.”

Optimus sighed and closed his optics. “I imagine it would be far, far worse.”

“And the worst is yet to come.”

“I appreciate the words of encouragement,” Optimus said in a sarcastic tone, but he meant no real malice by it. It was clear Ratchet knew so as well, as the medic only laughed. 

A ping came over his communication line. The Prime moved his servo to the side of his helm, answering the call after making sure the wires attached were not disturbed. ::Yes, Bumblebee?::

::Has it happened yet?::

Optimus paused a moment, and then laughed. ::No, not yet. I will have Ratchet announce to the crew when the sparkling arrives::

::Aww! No one’s focusing on their work. They’re all too excited about the sparkling::

::I imagine some last-moment bets are being made, are they?::

::Yup!:: Bumblebee responded cheerily. ::I think everyone’s made a bet at this point::

::I feel there will be many that will get upset at the outcome::

::Eh, probably, but nothing you can do about it! Can I go in and see you?::

Truthfully, Optimus wanted some company, but he knew he was in little shape to maintain a conversation. He sighed, thought of an alternative, and sent a reply. ::I am not feeling well enough to take visitors right now, and I believe Ratchet would prefer I didn’t. When the sparkling is here and I am recovered, I will let you be the first to come in and see them::

That seemed to please the scout. In his processor’s optic, he could see Bumblebee moving excitedly, his doorwings expressing the emotions he felt. 

Pain hit him again. He groaned and curled his servos into fists, pressing his chin against his chassis as he took deep in-vents and ex-vented harshly, trying this best to not be so consumed by the pain. One of Ratchet’s servos came to rest on his lower arm, his friend giving him a gentle squeeze of support.

“Steady, Optimus. One in, one out.” He paused for a nanoklik, then asked, “What’s the number?”

Optimus exhaled in momentary relief when the contraction stopped. “Eighty-six percent.”

The medic nodded. “I’ll get the next drip ready and put some more pain reliever. It’s only going to go downhill from here.”

Downhill? What? 

He must have made a loud noise of confusion, as Ratchet then laughed and reassured him, “I meant for the pain, Optimus. You’re doing well, all things considered.”

The Prime breathed a short laugh as he leaned back on the berth. “All things considered meaning that I am alone in this endeavour and have no one else, other than you, helping me?”

“Well, that was one part of it.”

“Oh frag you.” 

“I mean if you insist.”

“That is not what I meant, and you know it.”

The medic smirked. “I know, but you know I enjoy messing with you.”

Optimus smiled and closed his optics. “Yes. I know. I’m simply frustrated, so I apologize.”

“Eh, none taken. I’ve had other bots dish out way, way worse.”

For a moment, Optimus considered asking what was way worse than telling someone to frag themselves, but he decided he didn’t want to know just now. 

Pain hit him again, more intense, and as he gasped through it, he felt a rush of fluid between his legs. Ratchet saw it as well, as the medic immediately reached for a scanning wand he kept and placed between his thighs. “Keep ex-venting, but hold still. You’re at ninety-two, and the sparkling’s starting to move again.”

It was close. So very close. The pressure in his pelvic plating increased, and a few kliks later, which meant a few more spasms of pain later, Optimus scanned his frame again and gasped when one hundred percent blinked back at him.

“Ratchet,” he rasped out, “I’m at one hundred percent. I… I have to start.” He curled a servo into a fist and pressed it against his mouth, arching his back slightly. “Primus. I have to start.”

“Then push,” Ratchet said gently, “just focus on my voice and keep pushing, Optimus.”

The Prime nodded, panting heavily to try and provide some relief to his overworked vents. He summoned the bits of strength that he could into the task at hand. Holding onto the edge of the berth, Optimus moaned in pain as he continued to push, feeling the bitlet inching closer and closer towards the end.

“They’re coming closer. You’re doing good. When it stops, make sure you rest.”

He pushed with the painful pulling sensation, sighing in relief as the wave ebbed away. There was a definite increase in pressure just below his pelvic strut. 

“Feeling alright?” Ratchet asked.

Optimus braced himself as the wave of pain ceased, and then moved his fist away from his faceplates, reopening his optics. “I am pushing a sparkling out of my frame. I don’t see how I could be feeling “alright” as you say.”

Ratchet chuckled softly and made a gesture with his servo, briefly turning it so the palm was upwards. “Well, you have a point. I meant, aside from getting this bitlet out, are you feeling okay?”

“I simply want this to be over.”

“It’ll be over soon. Just gotta help me get the shoulder struts out at least, then I can get the bitlet out the rest of the way.”

Soon enough. Soon he would hold this little bitlet in his arms, this little bitlet that he’d created and grown within his frame. This sparkling that was his entire world would now be able to survive outside of him. Something like fear seized his processor, and Optimus must have failed to control his facial expression, as Ratchet’s voice grew concerned as the medic asked, “Optimus?”

“I wish Megatron was here,” Optimus responded, lifting his helm and meeting the medic’s optics. He felt heat rush to his faceplates. “I would give anything to have him with me.”

A look of somberness came over the medic’s faceplates. Ratchet sighed and put one of his servos to his hips, shaking his helm. “Optimus-”

“I know. I know what you’re going to say. He made his choice. I just wish, as I always will, that he could have been here to see our sparkling brought into-”

At that moment, the most painful contraction he’d felt surged through his frame. Optimus yelled and gasped, choking. He felt like he was going to go offline.

_ Primus, please let this stop. _

Through the haze of pain he heard Ratchet command him to push. He clung to that word. The sparkling inched forward, fast but also not fast enough for his liking. His body split open around the form of the bitlet, calipers rippling along, desperate to get the sparkling out. 

He thought of Megatron, how the other mech would have been by his side, holding onto his servo and offering words of encouragement. Another life, one that he would never have.

It was him and this bitlet all alone.

A mass pressed against the rim, and then he felt Ratchet’s digits down there again, helping part him.

“Keep going, you’re doing great Optimus,” his friend coaxed.

He gasped. The helm left him very slowly, stretching him the widest he’d ever been. Stars shot across his visual field, blazing trails in their wake. Digits maneuvered the frame, and he felt something that was wider than the helm press against him

“Shoulders next. One at a time, I’ll help you out.”

A strangled shout reached his audio receptors before he realized it was his own. He bore down, last bits of strength gathered. One shoulder strut slipped free, then the other, and then suddenly he felt the bitlet’s frame slip out of his, their physical forms permanently separated. The loss of extra weight, the feeling of sudden emptiness, made him gasp in shock, and he looked at the wet little frame that his friend held in his servos.

Ratchet gently and quickly wiped the bitlet down and then placed the small frame on his chassis, loosely draped in a soft sheet. Stirring, the little frame came to life with a sputter and then the sound of their inbuilt engine turning over for the first time, roaring to full power. A cry rang out, breaking the stillness of the medical bay, a sound that Optimus had never heard before. It was so beautiful, a sound he would remember with such clarity for the rest of his lifecycle. His intakes hitched, and droplets of fluid streamed out of his optics.

They were really here. The sparkling had survived so much with him, and now they were finally here. Optimus sobbed quietly, his sounds drowned out by the sparkling’s cries. He pressed his lipplates against the helm crest that mirrored his own. His chassis shuddered, his intakes hitching.

“It’s a femme,” Ratchet said from somewhere to his side, voice soft and almost totally drowned out by the sparkling’s wails, but the smile evident in his tone. “She’s a healthy, pretty little bitlet.”

A femme. A perfect and healthy little femme.

His spark brimmed with joy, overflowing at the sight of the little silver face peering out from folds of a soft blanket. He could not have asked for anything more as he quelled his own sobs and cooed softly at the wailing newspark, reaching out to envelop her in his electromagnetic field. Her panicked cries tapered off to whimpers, and Optimus’s spark was filled with utmost joy and happiness as she opened her optics, bright blue eyes looking unfocused in his general direction.

“Hello,” the Prime said softly, kissing her on her helm again, prompting a small squeak from the baby. “Hello there. I’ve been waiting a little while to meet you, my sparkling. I am sorry it is just me.” A rueful grin crossed his faceplates before disappearing, and he stroked one of her helm fins - so much like his own. “Your sire should have been here to greet you as well.”

The bitlet focused her gaze on him, and he fell moreso in love with the small little being. 

“I know it’s just the both of us,” he continued, his chassis shuddering, fluid streaming out of his optics. “But I will do my best for you, and I hope to Primus that my best is enough.”

His spark swelled, felt fit to burst in a supernova. How he’d thought he knew utmost love when he had fallen for Megatron, only to be proven wrong when he felt this little being quicken within his frame for the first time, and then proven wrong once more when he’d laid optics on her perfect, beautiful little face.

He’d created her. All this time, without any further input from Megatron past her conception, he’d created her, carried her to this end, for a brand new beginning. Tiny servos reached for him, and then dropped to his chassis, reflexes still uncoordinated. She squeaked again, optics meeting his.

_ I’m here. I love you more than you will ever know. _

“Do you have a name for her?”

The designation that had gotten the most kicks from her that one night flashed across his processor. “Yes. She decided on it, and it fits her well.” Optimus took the datapad with his free servo and typed in the name. When Ratchet took it back, the medic looked at the screen for a moment before smiling and nodding, almost as if in approval.

“Pretty and strong name for a pretty and strong little sparkling,” the medic said. “Andromeda.”

The sparkling reacted to the name by twisting in the sheet and letting out a curious warble.

“I can already hear the crowd outside,” Ratchet said as he turned towards the medical bay doors. Optimus’s optics followed the motion, and as he tuned his audio receptors and listened past the noises of the bitlet, he could hear them as well. “Think they probably heard the bitlet’s cry. Damn doors aren’t soundproof like I want them to be.”

“The ones that bet that I would bear a mech will be disappointed,” Optimus mused, head in a foglike state as he sighed and stroked the bitlet’s little helm.

“The ones that bet femme triple-changer or femme grounder will be disappointed too, ‘cause Primus damn they were so close,” Ratchet replied.

It took Optimus a few moments to catch on. When he did, he shifted the sheet that was draped over the bitlet and was greeted with the tell-tale signs of wing nubs peeping out from behind her backplating. No grounder traits in her as well, no signs of where sturdy treads might be fastened to one day.

Only wings. She would fly.

She warbled quietly at him and yawned, one of the wing nubs moving in a flicking motion.

“Let’s get you cleaned up before I head out there,” he heard Ratchet say, feeling the medic clean up around his pelvic and leg plating, cleaning up around his valve and spraying a solution before indicating that he should cover it. “Keep it there while it heals up any microtears to your protoform. We’ll need to get you and her into a bath. Think you can stand up?”

Optimus gathered the rest of the sheet around the bitlet and slowly sat up, grunting with the effort and pain that flashed through his pelvic region. Legs shaking, he put one over the edge of the berth, steadying it, before putting the other one over the edge and standing up. Ratchet immediately came to his side, supporting him as he guided him across the room into a small washrack.

“I’ll get a stool you can sit on.”

“No need,” Optimus said softly. “I can hold myself up.”

“I didn’t ask - here,” the medic brought over a stool with draining holes in the center. “Sit on it, clean yourself up. When you’re done, I’ll help you clean her up, then I’ll need to clean up the berth.”

“They’re going to wait a while.”

“Then they can wait. You’re the priority here. Well, she is, but you’re right up there next to her. Here, give her to me so you can get going.”

Smiling, Optimus reached forward for the switch, letting the cleaning solution spray over him as he wiped away the remnants of the emergence, the fluids that still stuck to his pelvic plating and legs, wiping down his front and over the still-swollen plating of his middle. It felt wonderful to feel some semblance of clean again.

“Done?”

“I believe so.”

“Good,” Ratchet said. “Come on, we need to clean her up.”

There was a small basin on a counter, which Ratchet had filled up with the cleaning solution. The medic handed the sparkling over to Optimus, and the Prime cooed at her as Ratchet grabbed a cloth and dipped it into the cleaning solution.

“Put her in, make sure her helm goes on the cushion. Oh don’t look at me like that, it’ll clean off the frame, but I need to clean her faceplates and neck cables with this. There, like that.”

Optimus watched a little warily as Ratchet cleaned off the bitlet, and couldn’t help but chuckle as Andromeda scrunched up her faceplates against the intrusion and shot her servos out to try and ward him off, tossing the solution around. She beeped in annoyance. 

“Yeah I wouldn’t like this either bit, but it’s gotta be done. And… there. Clean. Optimus, hold this sheet,” Ratchet threw it at Optimus’s chassis, “so we can wipe her down.”

The Prime did as ordered, marveling at the bitlet’s coloration as she was taken out of the cleaning solution and placed in his arms, wiped down so she was free of the remnants of her emergence as well. Deep blue plating that reflected his own blues, silvers and blacks and a tinge of violet. Her pedes were Megatron’s thorough and thorough, as were her servos. The recessive seeker code that had been present in both his and Megatron’s coding resulted in her chassis looking almost like Starscream’s, with some variations.

Her face and helm were all his own. She was almost his spitting image.

_ Megatron… we made a beautiful sparkling. You should have been here to see her. _

“Here. You can lie down now.”

Suddenly aware of how exhausted he was, Optimus laid back down on the now-clean berth and gratefully let Ratchet tuck a warming blanket around him and the bitlet, sighing in relief. He looked at his friend, and smiled back at the medic.

“I’ll go tell them, if you want.”

Optimus tucked Andromeda into his arms, stroking her face and watching her optics shutter down as she fell into recharge, and nodded.

The doors opened and shut behind Ratchet. In the brief moment that they were open, he heard the full volume of chatter and deduced that almost everyone was gathered right outside. He could hear hushed whispers and gasps of delight in the hallway as Ratchet gave the news to the crew. A sturdy, beautiful femme, with the buds of little wings on her backplates - she had a seeker’s frame.

The gasps of delight were replaced by some audible groans, and Optimus found that he was  _ very _ entertained by the thought of credits exchanging servos.

Optimus stroked his digits over the sparkling’s peaceful faceplates, smiling sadly at her. She stirred in her recharge, yawning, a servo shooting out and digits wrapping around one of his digits.

How such a small creature had stolen his spark. He felt fluid well up in his optics, which he allowed to trickle down his faceplates but wiped them away before they could fall on his sleeping little daughter. Andromeda’s optics moved under their covers, and a part of him wondered what sparklings could dream of.

Still she held onto his digit, one optic cracking open slightly, the beam of bright blue light shining in the darkness of the medical bay.

“If life had gone in the direction we had hoped,” Optimus said softly, tapping the end of the bitlet’s nasal ridge with the digit she held onto, “you would have been welcomed by two of us on Cybertron. I can’t say if we would have found peace by then, but I believe I can say it would not have been a war like this. I am sorry that circumstances couldn’t have been better. You deserve the universe, little one.”

Her other optic opened, and she blinked up at him, cooing softly.

“You deserve the universe,” Optimus heard his voice crack slightly, “and instead I brought you to life in an understaffed medical bay aboard a reformatted cargo hauler. You deserved far better than the start that I gave to you.”

Andromeda gazed at him with optics that showed a wisdom far beyond her age, as if she’d lived so many lifetimes before she began this new one. Her small, perfect, round servo released the digit she’d gripped onto, and she reached out to him with her small digits splayed outward. Optimus leaned down and pressed his lipplates against the inquisitive servo, fluid trickling down his faceplates again as the little femme patted his face.

She warbled softly at him, and then closed her optics, yawning.

A ping came over his communication link.

::Yes, Bumblebee?::

::Can I come in and see her?::

Optimus tucked the sheet a little more around the bitlet. ::Yes, you may come in::

Slowly, the door opened, and bright optics peeked out from the darkened hallway. The scout was crouched a little low to the ground as he closed the door behind him, walking quietly, his optics fixed on the bundle in Optimus’s arms. His doorwings flicked excitedly. Bumblebee came up to the side of the berth and gasped. “That’s her?” he asked softly, a bright smile on his faceplates.

Optimus nodded gently and then looked back down at the little bitlet resting on his chestplates. “This is her,” he said, his voice thick with pride and awe. “Her name is Andromeda.”

Bumblebee knelt down and placed his arms on the berth, crossing them and placing his head where they met. The scout’s smile warmed Optimus’s spark. “She’s so pretty. She also won me a lot of credits.”

“Who else placed the same bet that you did?” Optimus was surprised to find that he was genuinely interested in the answer, stance on betting not withholding. 

“Chromia, Grimlock, and Hot Rod. We’re swimming in credits and now I just realized we don’t really have anything to do with them.”

Optimus wanted to reiterate why he was against the idea of betting in the first place, but he decided he didn’t have the energy for it. He leaned against the mesh cushions supporting his back and helm, sighing softly.

“Did it hurt?” Bumblebee asked, optics fixing on him, doorwings lifting up in question.

Oh Primus. He nodded. “It was like nothing I’ve ever felt before, Bumblebee. I am not sure how it might measure up to the pain you’ve endured that I haven’t,” he said haltingly, thinking of his words before saying them, “but it was a pain of a different level. I couldn’t ask for a sedative to make me unconscious like I could with any other injury, because I needed to be aware of everything that was happening. The strangest thing did occur when she arrived.”

Bumblebee tilted his helm at him.

“When I laid optics on her for the first time,” Optimus stroked the sleeping bitlet’s face, “I forgot everything. I forgot the pain. I forgot the events that led me to be here. I forgot the universe. My only focus was her in that one moment that I first saw her face and form and realized that I loved her more than I would ever love anything or anyone in my lifecycle.”

Both mechs sat in silence for a while, gazing on the sleeping bitlet as she stirred every so often, fists curling and uncurling, her small vents working to keep her cool as much as they could. The spark monitor attached to the both carrier and sparkling beeped every so often, showing changes to spark rate and internal pressure.

“Windblade told me before we left Cybertron that she really wanted to know what the sparkling would be. I know I can’t, but I just really wish I could.”

Optimus looked at Bumblebee, noticing the scout still looking at the bitlet. He looked down at Andromeda, and then moved his arms so he held the sparkling out to the scout. Bumblebee looked a little alarmed and seemed to want to back away. “Oh Optimus, I, I can’t.”

“I will be here, extend your arms like this. Yes, like that. Support her neck and helm and her bottom. Careful of her arms. Stay here so I’m close by.” Optimus pulled his arms back and smiled at the sight of his now-awake daughter’s bright optics staring up at this unfamiliar mech. She beeped up at him, curious.

Bumblebee’s optics were wide as he stared down at the bitlet. “Hi, hi. I’m Bumblebee. I knew your sire. Oh, frag, I probably shouldn’t say that.”

Optimus let out a soft laugh. “She is unable to understand you.”

“Oh, right, right. Um… hi. I’m Bumblebee and you have the best carrier in the universe. We’re pretty lucky to have him on our side. Well, we’re pretty lucky that he  _ is  _ our side.”

The sparkling beeped at him again, holding a servo out, little fingers splayed out. Her inquisitive optics were bright, and one of the wing buds on her back flicked. 

“I will let you tell Windblade, as long as it is not outright stated.”

Bumblebee looked up at him, wings flaring out in surprise. The scout smiled and leaned in to hug Optimus, a hug that the Prime gratefully accepted. Between them, Andromeda squawked in an indignant manner, and Optimus took the sparkling back.

“I’ll run it by you to make sure you’re okay with it and all, thank you! She’s going to love this.”

.-.-.

Her communication link pinged a message at her, rousing her from an already unsteady recharge. Windblade held her helm in her servos for a moment, orienting her processor, before opening the waiting message.

It was a short video clip of Bumblebee, which warmed her spark. How she’d missed seeing his faceplates. She pressed play.

_ “Hey Windblade! I miss you a lot. Just wanted to say that we found a wayward bot. Took us a long time to get to her, but she’s just like you. We don’t have a lot of fliers. That’s pretty cool, huh?” _

For a moment, she was confused. Then she noticed the glint of mischief in his optics, and she realized what he meant.

She. Just like you.

Windblade put her servos over her mouth and smiled into her hands. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sincerely apologize for not responding to every comment on the previous chapter. I just wanted to say that I am grateful for prayers and well-wishes sent for my grandfather. It is my hope that this chapter - though very long, which I also apologize for - makes up for my lack of communication, and that you dear readers enjoyed it.
> 
> I have increased the chapter count for this fic from five to six, as the sixth chapter will count as an "epilogue" of sorts. Again, thank you dearly for your readership and comments.


	5. Spark's Lullaby

Ratchet had ordered him a full solar cycle of rest at minimum before he went back to his duties. So Optimus did exactly that, spending the solar cycle in his berth to rest his aching frame and marveling at the little femme and everything she did.

Of course, all she did was sleep heavily and occasionally root around for the feeding tube while whimpering. It was all that she knew to do, but to him, she was the most marvelous and incredible being in this universe. What an amazing thing she was, and how lucky he was to be her carrier. She was his universe, his spark given a face and a frame outside of his own.

The solar cycle of rest came to an end, and despite how much he found that he wanted to stay in his quarters to learn more about the little being that was his entire universe, he knew he had to return to his duties. An entire ship and an army of Autobots relied on him as well.

Optimus shifted the sling that held the sparkling to his chassis, cooing softly at her as she stirred in her recharge. One of her small servos reached outward, and she yawned before going still again.

Primus above. How perfect and amazing she was.

“Will she be fine to be out on the bridge with me?”

Ratchet made a noise of assent, and then nodded as he triple-checked the sling, helping to secure it. “Just don’t take her near Wheeljack’s lab or the engine rooms and she’ll be good. Hopefully there’s not much in the way of noise that can make her cry.”

The Prime looked down at the sleeping bitlet and sighed. She had barely cried in her solar cycle of existence, only whimpering every so often whenever she wanted to be fed. How he hoped she would be able to stay calm in the face of the activity that was sure to greet them when they arrived on the bridge. 

The corridor was empty as he walked the stretch from his quarters to the bridge. He held the bitlet close, unable to keep his optics off of her for more than a few moments. Her faceplates shifted in her recharge, optic covers fluttering as she dreamed. Small servos opened and closed, balling into fists.

Optimus wondered what her reaction to the bridge and the rest of the crew would be. She would likely recognize Bumblebee, but everyone else was so new. Would she be overwhelmed? Would she look at them with curiosity and allow them to hold onto her?

He steeled himself for any response that could come - loud noises, or a crowd already waiting on the other side, wanting to get a glimpse of the newest crew member. He prayed for patience and that she would be able to remain quiet, and then tapped in his code on the keypad.

The moment the doors to the bridge parted before him and he stepped in, every pair of optics turned to look at him, and then the gazes shifted downwards to the tiny, sleepy being curled up against his chassis.

Quiet, delighted gasps echoed in the room. As soon as he stepped onto the platform that his seat and console were on, almost everyone left their posts and crowded around him. Holding the bitlet closer, he cleared his vocalizer. “Please, keep the noise to a minimum if you can,” Optimus said, though he had little hope for it. “She is in recharge.”

A few of them nodded, and their voices became even more quiet, whispering in awe. Compliments of how small and beautiful she was, and how much she looked like him.

There were some questions.

“How much did it hurt?”

“What’s the cutest thing she’s done yet?”

“Does she sleep a lot?”

Yes, it hurt; it was the worst pain he’d ever felt, but for her he would repeat it again. Her chirps and warbles were music to his audio receptors, and combined with her bright optics, she was quite adorable in anything she did. Yes, she did recharge quite a bit, and for that he was grateful.

“May I?” Arcee said, holding her arms out, while Chromia hovered at her side. Optimus looked down at the sleeping bitlet, and then gently placed her in the pink-armored femme’s arms. He watched carefully as Arcee and Chromia cooed over the bitlet, who was now rousing from recharge and gazing curiously at the strange bots in her visual field.

“Hello there,” Arcee said, her voice light and cheery. “Hi. Aren’t you beautiful?”

Andromeda blinked her large optics up at her and chirped.

Chromia smiled and wiggled her digits in front of the sparkling’s face, laughing as the bitlet reached up and trapped said digits in her tiny servos.

“Everyone on Caminus would be all over her,” Chromia said off-handedly, clicking her glossa against the roof of her mouth. “They really love their sparklings.”

The bitlet chirred softly, letting go of the digits she held in her servos, and turned her face to look at her carrier. Finding him, she chirped insistently as she reached for him. Optimus smiled and laughed, taking the bitlet back into his arms as he slipped her back into the sling. She snuggled up to his chassis, chirping softly.

“I think anyone would be hard pressed to not love her,” Hot Rod said, swooping into view and leaning down slightly so his helm was level with the sparkling. “She’s so small and cute,” he continued, a wide smile on his faceplates. To his side, Deadlock gave a small smile and nodded enthusiastically.

Bumblebee appeared and smacked Hot Rod on the back of his helm lightly, prompting the other mech to turn around and then laugh when he realized the gesture was in good nature. “I told you all that she was the cutest thing!”

“Yeah, you did! And she really is!”

The excitement from the younger bots over the presence of the sparkling warmed Optimus’s spark. He looked down at his daughter, who was sleeping peacefully once more now that she was back with him, the proximity of his spark lulling her and comforting her. He sat down in his seat and supported her weight with one arm while he used the other to sign into his computer terminal. 

A report from Wheeljack awaited. The artificial energon he’d concocted had made the test machine run smoothly for a bit longer than previous trials, but it still wound up fritzing. Not a good sign.

The report ended with a hearty congratulations in all capitalized characters, and a promise that a small berth would be constructed soon.

Optimus wasn’t sure if he trusted the berth to hold up well, but he would address that concern when he got there. 

.-.-.

Soft servos gently papped over his faceplates, rousing him from recharge. He adjusted his optics to the lack of light in the berthroom, and smiled up at the small faceplate that peered down at him, illuminated by blue light.

“Hello to you as well,” he said gently. “How long have you been up, little one?”

His daughter warbled quietly at him, one of her servos moving to cover one of his optics. The Prime laughed and moved his helm away, turning to look for the datapad he had been reading to Andromeda when she had tucked herself into his side and fallen into a deep recharge cycle. He found it wedged between the head of the berth and the wall.

“Did you do this, or was it my servo that pushed it over there?”

Andromeda reached one of her servos out towards the datapad and chirped.

“Ah yes. It was my servo, wasn’t it?” Optimus slowly sat up, holding onto the sparkling with one servo as he fetched the datapad. “I am incredibly clumsy with these.”

The sparkling babbled at him, and he leaned in and kissed her helm crest, eliciting a giggle from her as she papped her hands over his faceplates again.

“You’ll wear an impression of your servos on my faceplates before very long,” he said, moving the kiss from her helm crest to the nearest cheekplate. “But I will wear your impressions as a badge of honor.”

Andromeda burbled softly and gave him her version of a kiss, pressing her lipplates against his cheekplate, but not actually following through. She would learn.

He got off his berth, sparkling in one arm and datapad in the other servo as he walked over to the shelf and put the datapad back where it belonged. Upon exiting his quarters, he wound his free arm around the bitlet, letting her tuck her helm against his neck, letting her chirp and warble to her spark’s content.

It was still relatively early in the solar cycle, so most Autobots were still in their rooms, no doubt in recharge. He made his way onto the bridge and saw that there was no one around - only Teletraan-1 was online, autopilot engaged.

Wheeljack had made the change about half a stellar cycle prior, giving the ship’s computer some semblance of sentience, able to take orders verbally and report as such. The first time that Optimus had tested the function, the tone of Teletraan’s voice had startled him and Andromeda, bringing her to tears. More exposure had gotten her to calm down, thankfully.

The bitlet chirred and squirmed against him, and Optimus rubbed the stretch of her backplates between her wings as he cleared his vocalizer and asked aloud, “Teletraan, what is the status on our energon levels?”

It took a moment, and then the computer responded. “Approximately ten solar cycles of consistent usage before our fuel tanks become empty.”

Ten solar cycles. It wasn’t as dire a situation as he’d hoped, but they needed to find more energon quickly. He nodded to no one in particular - Teletraan quite obviously could not see him - and said, “Very well. About how long until we reach another planet that might have energon?”

A few more moments of silence, and Teletraan replied. “There is a source of energon about six solar cycles distance from our current location.”

Optimus sat down in his captain’s chair, holding onto the warbling and squirming sparkling with one arm as he used his other servo to pull up the radar and map that charted their current course on screen. In those six solar cycles, they would pass through two asteroid fields and a star system with two stars and three planets. 

The star system beyond that had a body that seemed to be teeming with energon. He hoped, prayed that they would make it there and they could retrieve it without issue. 

Quiet warbles reached his audio receptors, and he felt small servos clinging to his chassis. He looked down at the bitlet, who was looking up at him with a hopeful gaze.

Already knowing what she wanted, Optimus opened one of his chassis plates and pulled out a thick tube filled with energon, holding it out to the sparkling. He smiled as she took a hold of the tube with one chubby servo and curled up to his chassis, warbling softly as she drank her fill. Kissing her helm crest, he leaned back in the seat and stared out of the window at the stars before them.

For a few kliks the only sounds were the occasional beeps of the computer systems, the hum of the engines, and the sounds of the infant at the feeding tube. Optimus sighed and stroked the tips of his digits over the little femme’s helm, smiling at her as she stared up at him with wide, trusting optics.

Her little legs bounced up and down.

“Don’t do that so much while you’re feeding. You’ll upset your tanks.”

Andromeda responded by pulling the tube out of her mouth and chirping at him. One of the wing nubs on her back flicked with curiosity.

“I know you are impatient, but you will have to learn. Patience is a good trait to have,” he said good-naturedly, kissing his daughter’s helm as he looked back out at the stars. He felt her feed at the tube again, the pulling sensation in his chassis settling to a dull ache. 

It was quiet, a rare occurence on the ship and especially on the bridge. How he had missed these moments. His life cycle thus far consisted of making sure the ship was running, that everyone on board was adequately powered and doing their duties, lightly chastising Wheeljack for another explosion in the lab, and of course caring for the bitlet.

For a moment, his processor was free of worry. For this moment, it was just the both of them.

Soft warbles floated up to his audio receptors, and he looked down to see his daughter looking at him again. The tube was held out to him, clasped in a chubby little hand.

“Thank you,” he replied, putting the feeding tube back in his chassis where it belonged. He shifted around to let her lay on him, watching her crawl up his chest and tuck her helm against the crook of his neck. 

The console nearest him beeped at him and displayed the radar. Unfortunately, a sparkling tucked against his neck and chest made it difficult to turn his helm and look at what the radar had picked up. He sat back up, Andromeda sliding down his chassis and plopping awkwardly into his arms with a confused chirp, and looked at the blinking screen.

A hazy ribbon-like shape crested and wove its way across the display, and as Optimus looked at the window again, he realized what the ship’s scanners had picked up: a cloud of rocky particles, hammering against the thick glass of the window.

The plinking noises startled his daughter, the femme whining and turning her helm into his chassis, as if trying to find a way to hide in the dark crevices of his armor.

“Shh, shh, we are fine,” he said gently, stroking her back. “It’s only a particle cloud. It can’t hurt us.”

She warbled at him.

“They are far too big to just be considered cosmic dust, and not large enough to be considered asteroids. Luckily they are small enough that when they hit our ship, we will still be fine. If it were an asteroid, we would be in some trouble,” he said with a smile in his voice. The sparkling seemed to calm slightly, and she chirped and curled up on his chassis, but kept her face turned towards the window, gazing at the same scene he was. 

After a few kliks of the consistent noise, the sparkling seemed to be lulled by it, and when Optimus looked down at her again, she had fallen into recharge, one side of her helm over his spark. Her faceplates shifted, and one of her servos twitched.

“Perhaps one day,” he said softly, brushing his lipplates over her helm, “you’ll tell me about the dreams you have. For now, I will simply wonder.” He leaned back in his seat again, slowly as to not disturb her, and looked out the window once more.

Space was eternal. Logically he knew it, but even all the mental preparation he’d tried to do before he’d even boarded the Ark hadn’t fully stressed to him just… just how eternal the sky reached. It felt like they’d traveled the universe in the stellar cycle and a half that they’d been off of Cybertron, but in the same breath Optimus would say that their journey had only just begun.

In that same vein, time was strange - it felt so long, that half of a stellar-cycle that had passed on the ship before the pangs of labor had fallen over him and he’d brought forth the perfect little creature on his chassis. The stellar cycle after that, until now, felt so short.

She was growing larger as time passed. He knew that she would not have stayed newspark-size, but it still amazed him how she was becoming her own bot with her own agency.

There was still so much that would be discovered, but he noticed that she seemed to have some of her sire’s behaviors. How she slept curled up on her side, the expression that she got on her faceplates whenever she didn’t get her way, the tilt of her helm to one side when something confused her.

But she was also so much like him. Her innate sense of curiosity, her willingness to try and comfort and lend a servo - as much as she could, after all - and her growing affinity for the written word. She couldn’t read yet, as she was still so young, but Optimus knew she would try to pick up his more advanced datapads and try to teach herself to understand them.  It was how he’d learned; he could envision her doing the same.

It was still very early, and it would be another few cycles before the others would wake and the Ark would be buzzing with activity. Optimus ensured the volume of the beeps and alarms on the radar were online, just in case, and closed his own optics. 

His dreams were the usual - he imagined a peaceful Cybertron. Megatron had accomplished what he’d wanted, and it was the both of them with their sparkling. How Megatron doted on her and spoiled her, how fiercely protective he was of the both of them. There was nothing more precious in the universe than the sparkling they’d created.

A future Optimus himself wanted. But he had to settle for this alternative.

A warbling beep roused him, and he turned to look at the radar, cooing to the sparkling as she stirred but didn’t wake. The radar screen showed that the  _ Ark _ was almost through the particle cloud, as was evident by the plinking sounds no longer coming in such fast succession. He looked up and out the window, noticing the cloud was definitely thinning out.

And then, he saw it.

At first it was the size of a particle, but something about it drew Optimus’s attention. He fixed his gaze on it and watched it grow closer and closer, expecting it to eventually hit the window and be pushed out of the way. It reached the largest size that a particle could, and when the  _ plink _ noise didn’t come, he noticed how it grew larger.

How it was significantly darker than the other particles in this belt were.

It had actual decipherable lines to it, unlike the haphazard edges that the bigger of the particles did, unlike the faint mist of the smallest rocks.

There was a pit of worry in his tanks. He adjusted how he sat in his seat, straightening his back and keeping the sparkling to his chassis. She chirred softly as she was fully awakened, bright optics blinking, her small servos clinging to him. He placed a servo to her back, holding her close as he stared intently at the speck.

Except, he now knew, it was no speck.

The stylizations on the ship were obviously Cybertronian. He wondered how long it had been there for, and if they could tell that they were approaching. With their cloaking technology clearly activated, it would be a two-way street - any alarms on the craft would not signal their approach.

One of his servos moved from cradling the sparkling to inching towards the ship-wide alarm button that was on his console. He slowed the crawl, keeping his gaze on the ship, waiting to see if there was any activity from it.

Then, the lights on the craft came online, illuminating the particle cloud around it, the shapes of thrusters onlining emerging from the shadows at the same time that he noticed an incredibly familiar insignia on the side of the craft.

His spark stopped pulsing for a moment, and his energon ran cold.

Andromeda made a gasping noise.

In the same moment he pressed the button, sounding the alarm, Andromeda cried out in terror. The ship began racing towards the Ark with cannons aimed and cycling online.

“What is going on-” Grimlock’s voice shouted above the din of yelling, a sparkling crying, and the alarm, but he went silent. Out of the corner of his optics, Optimus saw the mech stall, and then dart for his usual seat at the communications console as Hot Rod, Bumblebee, Chromia, and Wheeljack stormed in, followed by most of the crew coming to get a look.

“Didn’t the radar tell you they were coming?” Hot Rod yelled over Andromeda’s terrified cries.

Optimus firmly shook his helm, caressing his daughter’s helm, trying to calm her down. “They were cloaked. Bumblebee,” he beckoned the scout over and handed him the crying sparkling, “take her to Ratchet. He knows to safeguard her.”

“I’m on it,” Bumblebee said seriously, holding the sparkling in both of his arms as he ran off.

Through the carrier-creation bond, he could feel how terrified she was. How he wanted to go run to her and take her back in his arms, how he wanted to comfort her, but this was one instance where he had to stay put. Ratchet would take care of her for now.

The ship jolted as the first shot hit them. Optimus gripped the armrests of his seat and closed his optics for a moment, and then reopened them. “Get us as far away from them as possible.”

Bumblebee was back, and seated between Chromia and Hot Rod as they onlined the Ark’s thrusters, taking them to full speed.

His processor told him that they would no longer have enough fuel left to make it to that next energon cache. He shunted that thought aside. He refused to blink and fire first. If he did, he would have been no better than Megatron.

The Ark jolted again, and a look out the window showed that the Decepticon ship had gone around them and was now targeting the rear end of their vessel, where the Ark’s thrusters were. They were trying to disable them, leave them stranded and flailing in the vast expanse of space and time.

Optimus activated the back-facing cameras that were situated to the rear of the Ark, and spliced images of the Decepticon craft beamed to their console screens. It darted around, fast for a ship of its size. A bright blinking button caught his attention - it would online the cannons on the rear and had enough firepower to obliterate a small vessel. He shook his helm and then looked up, clearing his vocalizer. 

“Grimlock, can you open a communication channel with them?”

“Are you serious, as they’re  _ firing _ on us?”

“Do it!”

There was an audible groan from the mech as he did what was commanded. A screen popped up next to the radar on Optimus’s console, and he looked down and saw that the communication request was still pinging.

It continued for half a klik, before it was staunchly refused. Grimlock said something that sounded like him saying they’d gotten a message.

“They’re telling us to prepare for destruction,” the mech said.

The craft was large, but not so large that it could tear them apart themselves. Chances were high that they had called for backup.

Meaning there were likely more Decepticon ships in the vicinity.

Against one, the Ark could last and prevail. Against many, the Ark was likely doomed.

The ship jolted again, much more severely this time that it sent everyone flying from their seats. Optimus landed on the console before him with a painted grunt and then looked at the rear camera of the Ark, noticing how the enemy ship was closing the distance between them. Through the static, he could see how their cannons were very close to firing.

The Ark would be adrift, rife for the taking. They would be taken prisoner and Megatron told of the daughter he never knew about, at best.

At worst, they would all be slaughtered. No one, not even the innocent sparkling on board, would be spared the fate.

Without a word, without further thought, Optimus pressed the button to the rear cannons of the Ark.

On the small screens on their consoles, they saw the ship break into minute pieces as the fireball consumed it entirely, sending a shockwave towards them. The ship’s sensors picked up on it and it gave them all a small jolt, the ones that had managed to get on their pedes wobbling in place for a brief moment before the ship stabilized.

The radar beeped, and Teletraan said something that was lost on him. He would ask Grimlock or Bumblebee, someone else, about it later. Optimus got to his pedes and, without looking at anyone else in their optics, left the bridge in search of his daughter.

He didn’t remember making it to Ratchet’s quarters, but the next time he became actively aware of his surroundings, he was being guided in, a sparkling placed in his arms, and the doors locked behind him. Sighing heavily, feeling his armor shaking, he pressed his helm against his daughter’s, smiling as she beeped up at him. The moment that Andromeda was back in his arms, Optimus felt his spark calm, as did her own spark and electromagnetic field. All felt right.

“We lose the ship?”

The Prime paused for a moment, looking at his daughter in her optics as she quietly chirred. He passed a servo over her helm and sighed. “I destroyed it.”

Ratchet was silent for a klik, staring at him incredulously before he responded, “You  _ destroyed _ it? How?”

“With the Ark’s cannons.”

Both mechs were silent for a while, Optimus trying to occupy himself with his daughter’s need for attention. Hindsight, and then shame, coursed through his processor as he finally and totally comprehended exactly what he had done.

The first time. This was the first time he’d purposefully offlined anyone in the course of this war.

Guilt settled in his tanks. He wanted to purge. Instead, he buried his face in the sparkling’s shoulder strut and sighed, taking comfort in her small servos patting over his helm as if she understood what he was going through.

“I have to say I don’t blame you,” his friend said quietly after another further klik of silence. “But as Autobots, we did take pride in not being the aggressors in battle.”

Optimus drew back and sighed, letting Andromeda curl up in his arms and bury her own face in the crook of his neck. “I know that well. But when they grew closer, when I requested a communication link, they simply sent us a threatening response. They may have called for reinforcements, and then the chances of us escaping them would have grown far slimmer” He let Andromeda grab one of his digits and bend it at the joint. “What if they had boarded the Ark, Ratchet?”

Out of the corner of his optics he could see the medic’s gaze rest on the sparkling. His audio receptors picked up the weary sigh he’d come to be so familiar with. “They would have found her. I know.”

“And the pursuit was draining our tanks of energon. We have to make it to the next place that shows a reading. We have to get that energon. It is a matter of our survival.”

“I know that,” Ratchet whispered back a little fiercely. “I know what level the tanks are at, so don’t lecture me.”

Andromeda beeped softly, drawing one of his digits into her mouth and nibbling lightly on them. Optimus drew them away and stroked her helm. “I couldn’t stand the thought of her being taken to Megatron, were we boarded. Much worse, if they decided to terminate us all.”

Ratchet reached out and put a comforting servo on his arm. “I know.”

The Prime sighed and continued, “Were she not here, I believe I would have avoided destroying the ship for as long as we could have. I’m… I am sorry. My instinct to protect her overtook rational thought. And for that I now have spilled energon directly on my servos.”

“I don’t blame you, Optimus. Pretty sure most bots on this ship don’t blame you either.”

“They won’t, or they will but will refuse to tell me anything,” he corrected the medic. “It was a moment of weakness that I should have done everything in my power to overcome.”

“You were protecting her and all of us. Like I said, no one on this ship is going to blame you for this. Besides,” Ratchet said, moving his servo away, “think of all of the Autobots we’ve lost during the course of the war.” He gave a heavy sigh. “It was only a matter of time before we struck back. I know you’d have preferred if it weren’t you doing it, but it happened.”

The saying that went “an optic for an optic will leave the world sightless” went through his processor. At his core, he still felt that he was fundamentally in the wrong, for he loathed the fact that he’d taken away a life, even if it was in battle. A matter of survival.

Andromeda warbled at him, getting his attention once more. He smiled down at her, and as with each time that he looked at her, his spark grew warm. For that moment, she was everything in his universe.

“If it had to come this way, I would rather have offlined them in servo-to-servo combat, where I could have at least seen their face. But, I was trying to protect us. And protect her.” He thumped the tips of his digits over the sparkling’s side, eliciting a shivering jerk and a giggle from her. “I just hope that we won’t encounter any more Decepticon ships during our journey. I’d like to minimize the risk of our location being reported, and the risk of battle.”

Ratchet nodded. “Understood loud and clear, Optimus.”

.-.-.

The escape from the Decepticon ship had cost them quite a bit of fuel supply, which further intensified the need for restocking.

Intel received from Perceptor said that it seemed that Shockwave had developed technology that fueled their ships to go faster and farther distances - which Optimus surmised explained how the one ship had lain in wait for an unsuspecting party to pass by. He shuddered to think of how close they were to losing the war.

AllSpark. Energon. They needed both.

In a solar cycle they were expected to finally land on that celestial body that Teletraan had found, the one that sent back energon readings. Optimus kept telling himself that whatever they would find, it was better than nothing at all. 

An electromagnetic field bumped against his. He looked up from the reports he read and smiled at the sparkling in his lap, whose bright blue optics looked up at him with that sense of wonder that she always had. He leaned down and pressed his helm crest against hers, chuckling softly as she raised both of her servos and held onto his helm. After another moment, she lowered her servos and palmed his chassis.

Oh, yes. Optimus put the datapad down and got up from his seat, heading out of the bridge with his daughter held in his arms. She chirped and warbled, blinking her bright blue optics at everyone that passed them by and waving.

They all greeted her excitedly, waving back.

When Optimus got to his quarters, he realized that another set of energon rations had been delivered to him. He sighed and made a mental note to put them back in the storage unit on board the Ark.

“You should have finished those other rations by now,” a voice said that caused both him and his daughter to jump, startled. He turned around and his spark calmed when he saw that it was only Ratchet.

Composing himself, Optimus reset his vocalizer. He’d been had. “I’ve… been rationing them to try and make them stretch out a few more solar cycles.”

The medic tilted his helm and then made a gesture for the Prime to go into his quarters, which Optimus did. Best to follow the medic’s orders, lest you be given a lecture. Ratchet shut the door behind them and crossed his arms over his chassis. “Optimus, you’re hurting yourself.”

Prickling at the admittedly accurate assumption, Optimus sighed. “Fine, yes. I feel some pain, Ratchet, but I will be fine.”

“Like frag you are. Hold still,” Ratchet ordered as he pulled a scanning device out of his subspace and waved it over Optimus’s frame. Andromeda was fussing loudly, now very hungry. 

“Are you done?” Optimus asked, tone a little more harsh than he’d intended. “I’d like to make sure my daughter gets fed sometime this cycle.”

“I’m not stopping you,” Ratchet said tersely. 

Settling his fussy sparkling in his arms, Optimus handed her a feeding tube and cradled her helm as she finally began feeding. He closed his optics and sighed, trying to focus away from the intensified pulling sensations that feeding put in his chassis.

“You need to make sure you keep taking your rations. Do I have to sit you in front of me again and make sure you actually take them, like when you were carrying?”

Oh how he’d hated it when Ratchet had done that. He felt like a sparkling being chastised for taking more energon treats than he was allotted. He grit his dentae and shook his helm. “My rations are much more than everyone else. I cannot keep taking energon away-”

Ratchet interrupted him. “You’re still not getting it. The reason you have more rations is because you still feed your bitlet from your energon lines, and you’re going to keep doing it for at least another stellar cycle more until her systems can handle mid-grade.”

“No, I understand perfectly well. I can keep myself going on half my usual ration.”

“No you overgrown, stubborn bitlet,” Ratchet gesticulated in frustration. “I’m not letting you get weaker and weaker on my watch. You’re taking all your rations and that’s final. Doctor’s orders.”

As if to drive the point home, Andromeda chirped and blinked her large blue optics up at him. Optimus looked down at her and stroked her helm, letting her cuddle against his chassis, against his spark, as she burbled softly, her small servos holding onto him in a fierce grip. “Ratchet, I do not want for everyone to continue to sacrifice their energon for me. I was the one that  _ chose  _ to have her. They did not. They shouldn’t be punished again by going through a rotating schedule of not having rations, not after the fact that we went through this entire exercise while I was carrying.”

“Well, you don’t have a choice. Remember what I told you? Your frame’s starting to break down the lining of your gestation chamber, since it’s the easiest to get to. Just like I warned you.”

“It is not as if I planned on using it again.”

“Right, right, I’ll take it out soon like you asked,” Ratchet waved a servo dismissively. “But are you going to say the same thing when it moves on to your T-cog? Or your intakes, or your spark chamber casing?”

Optimus looked up at him, but said nothing. What else could he say? He’d been warned before, after all.

“Here,” Ratchet handed him a cube of energon. 

The Prime looked down at it and, knowing he had no choice in the matter, downed the energon in one go. 

“We need you in one piece. And if you don’t want to think about it for the sake of the Autobots as a whole, at least think of your bitlet. She needs you more than any of us.”

Optimus kept his gaze on the sparkling in his arms, curled against his chassis, sighing. She made a small noise and shifted so she gazed up at him. One of the wing nubs flicked, and she reached one of her arms up and out to him, patting him on his chin.

“I know. I know she needs me,” he said quietly.

.-.-.

The planet was a barren rock hanging in the sky when they landed. Preliminary scans showed that it was cold, dark, and covered in a frozen liquid that could make walking briskly and standing upright difficult.

From a glance through the window of his quarters, he was unable to find any trace of energon on the surface. But, Teletraan insisted that there was a source of energon on this world, so they had to investigate this desolate place.

“Optimus? Are you ready?”

The Prime looked at Bumblebee and nodded, then turned to Ratchet and sighed. “I apologize in advance if she cries.”

Ratchet waved a servo. “I know what I’m signing up for when I say I’ll be the sparkling-sitter.”

“Thank you. If it were not dangerous I would take her with me, but I do not want to risk anything happening to her.” He looked down at the sparkling in his arms, and smiled gently at her. “You will be staying with Ratchet for a bit, little one,” Optimus said as he kissed the sparkling’s helm crest. “Be sure to behave for him.”

Andromeda held a servo out to him and chirred sadly. He hoped to Primus that she wouldn’t begin crying for him; if she did, he would find it that much harder to part from her. He stepped back and nodded at his friend. “We will be back as soon as we can, and hopefully it will be with some more energon.”

Ratchet adjusted the grip he had on the sparkling and clicked his glossa at her, chuckling a bit as she roughly pat her servo on his face. “Be quick with it.”

Optimus and Bumblebee made their way down the walkway of the Ark, stepping out into the freezing cold with Grimlock. 

Nothing. It was bare as far as the optic could see, stretching towards a desolate horizon. The Prime adjusted his internal temperature to keep it more stable, and then opened his communication link with Teletraan. On his forearm, he brought up a radar to scan the area.

“Teletraan-1, confirm your readings on the energon.”

It took a moment for the ship’s computer to respond over the distance. “Affirmative. There is a source of energon in your vicinity.”

Optimus sighed and shut off the link and radar. “Then we must keep looking. We can cover more ground if we spread out.”

.-.-.

Grimlock had led them to the source of the energon. It seemed as if their problems would be solved, until the cave dwellers - monsters, Grimlock had called them - emerged and steadfastly defended their domain. Desperate, he’d fought and swore to stand ground. They couldn’t lose the energon.

When one latched onto his energon axe and he felt a pulling sensation not entirely unlike the one that afflicted him when his daughter fed from his lines, Optimus came to the realization that it was not their energon to take. It was a hard realization to come to, and as he sped away with Grimlock and Bumblebee hanging off of his vehicular mode, he cursed Primus for the temptation.

Thankfully, they escaped the cave, but of course took nothing for their troubles.

Ratchet had asked why they hadn’t at least taken some of it. 

“We couldn’t,” he answered. “It may be all the energon that they have to sustain themselves. We do not know if they use another food source in conjunction, so we will not be responsible for the decimation of a species.”

“You’re still torn up about the Decepticons you killed on that ship, aren’t you?”

Optimus didn’t answer, averting his gaze as he hefted Andromeda back into his arms. How he’d missed her so much in the short time they’d been apart. She seemed to share the same sentiment, as she happily burbled and buried her face in his chassis.

“There, little one,” he said softly, cooing to her. “I’m here.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

The Prime gave the medic a sharp look. “What does your instinct tell you?”

“You regret blowing that ship up.”

“I’ll regret it the rest of my life cycle, Ratchet. I refuse to allow us to take energon from a species that seems to have evolved strictly to depend on it. Yes, we need the energon, but they need it more. We have alternative ways of dealing with our shortage where they do not.”

The medic gave him a suspicious look. “We don’t have any alternative ways to create energon, if you weren’t aware. Wheeljack and I keep getting things blown up in our face when we try.”

“I’m not referring to artificial energon,” Optimus said in a soft tone. Taking a moment to let the statement sink in, he continued, “What I am referring to, is stasis lock.”

Those two words struck Ratchet silent, and the medic blinked at him. It became so quiet in the room that Optimus swore he could almost hear the mechanisms in Ratchet’s optics and his processor working as he fully comprehended what had been said.

During the period of quiet, Optimus kept his grip on his daughter, gently stroking her back and the back of her helm. She snuggled closer against him, her electromagnetic field flaring out caution - almost as if she could understand the conversation that was happening, and the gravity of the situation.

Finally, Ratchet was able to speak. He cleared his vocalizer. “You want to put us into stasis?”

“Yes,” Optimus answered quietly but firmly. “I believe it might be for the best, and it also might be our only chance at survival. If we gave the last of our energon into the fuel systems for the Ark, powered everyone down and only left Teletraan-1 online to navigate for us, we might have a chance at being able to survive to reach the next energon cache.”

“Well… I see what you’re saying and I agree. I sense a “but” in your voice, Optimus.”

“Yes. There is. I am worried about the effect that stasis lock might have on Andromeda. She is only a stellar cycle old and I’m not certain if she can handle it, even if we slumber for a solar cycle.”

At the mention of her name, the sparkling turned her helm away from her carrier’s chassis and warbled curiously. He offered her one of his digits. She bent it at the joint for a moment, and then grabbed another digit and pulled them into her oral cavity, mouthing at them.

Ratchet made a noise of contemplation and leaned against the nearest wall. “She’s almost a stellar cycle. She should be fine going into stasis lock with you.”

“Are you certain she will be okay?”

The medic nodded. “Yes, I’m certain. If she were still a newspark, I would advise against it, but by now she’s old enough and developed enough that her frame can handle going into stasis.”

Optimus looked down at the bitlet again, watched her mouth at his digits. He moved them away a little bit, and Andromeda reached out for them again, pulling them back to her mouth as she nibbled on them.

“The most common after-effect of stasis is grogginess. I’m simply worried that it might have a more extreme effect on her.”

Ratchet cleared his vocalizer and pulled something out of his subspace, handing the sparkling a soft chewing ring. She happily took it with a cheery burble and bit down on a part of it, leaving her carrier’s fingers alone. “She may be much groggier than even Grimlock says he’ll be, but she won’t have any adverse health effects since that’s what you’re concerned about.”

.-.-.

A sense of sadness and resignation hung over the Ark as everyone began the process of locking down whatever little belongings they had left. 

Optimus settled the last of his prized datapads into the safe box and locked it, storing the key in his subspace. He hoped that after however long it might take for them to be reawakened, he would remember that he’d put it there. 

A quiet warble floated to his audio receptors, and he looked up at his little daughter sitting on the berth and returned the smile she had. She reached both of her arms out, yawning, and chirped insistently at him. Getting to his pedes, he picked her up. “It’s a very strange start in life you’ve had thus far. Don’t you agree?”

_ Chirp! _

Optimus smiled and kissed her helm crest, mixing his electromagnetic field with hers. Hers was profuse with trust and love for him, for her carrier. She patted her servos on his face and pressed her lipplates on his nasal bridge, finally giving him a proper kiss.

The Prime laughed softly. “Come. We have some time still,” he said as he left his quarters for the bridge. The corridors were empty, and a waiting message from Ratchet told him that most of the Ark’s occupants were reporting early and settling into stasis.

The stars were there. They always were. Heralding the birth of the universe, they would be there until the end of time itself, when their starlight flickered out of existence.

Andromeda chirped and reached an arm out towards the window. Optimus stroked her back and made his way to the window, leaning over the consoles that were at waist-height for him, and held his daughter out to the glass, watching her carefully as she ran her servos over the cold glass.

He could see her reflection, how enamored she was with the stars that passed them by. Her optics were bright, and she smiled as she lightly slapped her right servo on the window, curling it into a fist and bringing it to her optics as if expecting to see that she’d caught one.

How he wished he were young, unaware of the full gravity of the situation. As she tried to play with stars, he found his spark twisting in sorrow. A heaviness settled on his shoulder struts, and he pulled her back.

She warbled at him, blinking her optics up at him.

“Your sire and I would give you the universe if we could. I’d give you these stars and so much more, but I’m sorry that I cannot,” he said quietly. He traced the outline of one of her helm finials, smiling as she twitched and moved away from the questing digits. “I want to do better for you. Primus help me,” he noticed his voice was growing a little thicker, and he tried to rein in his emotions but failed, a drop of fluid escaping his optics as he cradled the femmeling close. “You deserve much better than what I’ve been able to give you.”

There was a klik of silence as he composed himself. Closed his optics and sighed heavily, continuing to stroke his daughter’s helm, feeling her wiggle against him and listening to her soft sparkling warbles. 

Reopening his optics, he found that the sparkling’s optics gazed at him, and she tilted her helm minutely and gave a soft chirp. She moved her optics to the stars again, and reached for them.

Behind him, the doors to the bridge parted, and he heard someone head for him. He turned his helm to look and see who it was, and found that it was Bumblebee. Smiling at the young scout, he drew his daughter closer to him again and turned his whole body so he faced the yellow mech. “Did Ratchet send you after me?”

“Yeah, Ratchet sent me to find you.” Bumblebee flicked his wings and wiggled happily when Andromeda returned the gesture with her own budding wings. “You two are the only ones not in the stasis pod room right now.”

“We will be there shortly. I simply wanted to show her the stars.”

“Yeah.” Bumblebee sighed and looked out the window too, leaning over the console and flattening his doorwings against his back. “Who knows when we’ll next see them again. Could be in stasis for ages. Pit, some of these stars,” he made a sweeping motion with both of his servos and his doorwings perked up, “might not even be here when we wake up!”

Andromeda listened to the yellow mech, entranced, and chirruped gaily, throwing her own arms up to mimic his gestures. In doing so, she smacked her carrier in the face.

Optimus laughed after the momentary shock wore off. “I hope we won’t be in recharge for so long, Bumblebee. I like to think that the stars will still be around when we are brought out of our stasis lock.”

“I know,” the scout said as he smiled at both him and the little femme. “I was just being dramatic.”

The Prime nodded and looked out the window again, taking in the stars, and then departed from the bridge. On the way out, he ran the tips of his digits over the main console, where Teletraan’s primary computer was.

_ Keep us safe. _

Both mechs walked down the corridor towards the stasis pods in a heavy silence. Andromeda was warbling every few steps, curled up in her carrier’s arms as she looked straight up ahead. 

“I told Windblade what you told me to. And I also told her that I was sorry that I’d have to stop communications too. I just… wish that I could have told her we were going into stasis.”

Optimus knew and he’d wanted to let those stationed back on Cybertron know as well. But if communication was intercepted, the Decepticons would know they were entirely vulnerable, and wipe them all out while they were in stasis. He sighed. “I know. I wish that I could have allowed that, but you know the reasons why I couldn’t.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m sorry, I just… I miss Windblade so much it’s not funny.”

The Prime went quiet for a moment, and his steps slowed. Bumblebee seemed to pick up on the change, and his doorwings flared out and he looked back at him, optics a little wide. “Oh, right. I’m sorry. I uh… I’m sure you miss him.”

Smiling gently at the scout to let him know that there was no harm done, Optimus nodded. “I miss what he used to be. I miss what he could have been.” He adjusted his grip on his daughter. “But there is no use in pondering it further. Primus knows I’ve spent enough time doing so. I have her, and I have the rest of you under my commander, to think about.”

They walked the rest of the way to the pods. As they got closer, Bumblebee asked softly, “What will you do if he finds out about her?”

The Prime looked at the bitlet again, watching how she was draped over his shoulder strut and how she stared behind them. A doorwing flicked in his face, nearly hitting him. “The matter is not “if” but rather a “when,”” he admitted. “And as reckless as it may seem, I have decided that I will deal with that matter when it arises.” He gave the scout a rueful smile. “My processor will come up with a myriad of ways to handle that situation, but I know that I cannot prepare for everything.”

Bumblebee looked at him and then at the sparkling. “Yeah. True.”

They made it to the stasis pods. Almost everyone was in stasis lock by now, with the exception of Bumblebee, Grimlock, Wheeljack, himself, and his daughter. 

Grimlocked groaned and turned to Bumblebee as the scout took up residence in a pod next to his. “I hate going into stasis, I’m always groggy and slow after I wake up.”

Optimus couldn’t help but smile at the half-sparked protest, and he was ever thankful that Andromeda was at least still so young that she couldn’t understand what they were saying.

And speaking of Wheeljack, he heard the mech race in, giddy. He turned to face the engineer, who came right up to him and half-shouted, “I did it! I managed to boost the range of our scanners by a power of ten! We’ll be able to find the AllSpark in no time!” Then he paused and considered something, before continuing, “Of course that could still take tens of thousands of stellar cycles.”

The Prime smiled at him. “Good work, Wheeljack. I hope when we are awoken from stasis, Teletraan-1will have found us energon and the AllSpark.”

He watched as Wheeljack made his way over to an empty pod and settled himself in. Looking down at the sparkling in his arms, he stroked Andromeda’s faceplates and smiled at her as she reached out and wrapped her little digits around his, her bright blue optics gazing happily at him.

“You and I will be fine. We will simply be recharging for a little while.”

She chirped quietly at him and reached up, bapping him gently on his chin and kicking her little legs. He kissed her helm crest and then pressed his own against hers.

A little while, he had said, guarding her from the truth - that he didn’t know if a little while would be a solar cycle, or a thousand stellar cycles. There would be no way to tell, and he hoped the day would come that the AllSpark would be in their servos once more, and that Andromeda could know a world beyond that of the Ark.

Andromeda suddenly began whining loudly and looking around frantically, as if now noticing the small space they were both about to be put into. Optimus cooed at her, tucking her close to his chassis and meeting her gaze. Almost instantly she calmed, and she reached out, gently papping her hands along the sides of his face.

By scanning the room, he could tell that everyone else had already gone into their pods and gone into stasis, with the exception of Bumblebee, who had closed the cover of his pod but not activated stasis yet. Now it was he and the sparkling cuddled up to his chestplates who were the last to have the door to the pod open.

“We will be fine.” He tapped the end of her nasal ridge, prompting a small warble from the little femme. “I will be here when you wake up, little one, and I will not let anything bad happen to you.”

Her bright blue optics blinked at him and her wings gave a soft flick. She settled against him, yawning and stretching, her optics slowly sliding shut as her systems powered down. The side of her helm pressed over his spark chamber.

His life force had been her companion since the moment she had been conceived, her spark so dependent on it for a few solar cycles before being old enough to descend. The rhythm and feel of her carrier’s brillant, strong spark was her lullaby, and when he couldn't calm her with words, his spark sang a song that was older than her. And thankfully, it always did the trick.

_ May this not be the last time you hear my spark pulsing with yours, little one. _

Optimus shut the door to the pod as quietly as he could, and thankfully Andromeda did not wake. Kissing the top of her helm, he watched her faceplates, the visage of serenity, and then closed his own optics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, this is almost done! To those still sticking with this, thank you, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I will be aiming to put the epilogue up within the next month, but of course I can't always be certain.
> 
> Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated <3


	6. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Windblade/Bumblebee shipper in me jumped out a little bit in this chapter.

_ “We’ve known each other a very long time. We’re good friends. Do you remember any of that?” _

_ The face looking back at her was a familiar one, but the look in his optics told her that she herself wasn’t a familiar face. He nodded slightly, his radio doing the speaking for him. “Yeah.” Then he looked to the side with a pensive face. “Maybe.” He leaned forward and rested his chin on one of his servos, expression changing to a frown. “No.” _

_ Pushing down her spark’s need to tell him everything that he was, Windblade composed herself and shook her helm, closing her optics. “Oh, Primus help me.” _

.-.-.

His last memory was holding his daughter as she went into recharge, her faceplates stilling just before he was put into a suspended state along with her. His last thoughts had been how he hoped they would be reawakened soon, with news of the AllSpark and more energon having been located.

When he next onlined, the lid of the stasis pod was opening up, and his senses were assaulted by the blaring alarm. Andromeda jolted awake and cried, clinging to his chassis and burying her faceplates in the spot over his spark.

He was scared as well. This hadn’t been the reawakening that he’d anticipated. His carrier coding and his duty to his Autobots overtook all semblance of fright he had, as he quietly cooed to the sparkling, stroking his servo over her helm to calm her and stepped out of the stasis pod, looking around to see everyone else jolting out of their pods and panicking.

Then he saw them.

Familiar faces through the haze of a stasis lock being lifted.

A yellow blur came forward and threw itself at him. His processor reoriented itself and a name came to his processor, rolling off his glossa as he shifted his daughter to one arm and wound his arm around the frame hugging him. “Bumblebee,” he said shakily, a smile on his faceplates. His spark leapt in joy.

Those doorwings lifted into the air and the scout looked up at him with wide, bright optics that soon changed to shock as they took in the sparkling crying nearby.

He could see the questions going through Bumblebee’s processor. 

Windblade and Grimlock made their way forward, and how he was so relieved to see more familiar faces, and how he had many questions percolating through his own processor. By looking at them, he could tell that they had answers to some of them. They would have to be addressed later - there was the issue of the alarms wailing, the vibrations in the air rattling their frames.

A cheery voice that was definitely not Teletraan-1 spoke. There was a Decepticon ship incoming.

Optimus turned behind him and caught Ratchet’s optics through the congregated mass of Autobots shaken out of stasis. He kissed his crying daughter’s helm and walked through the crowd, which parted before him and left a path. Her cries increased as he gave her over to the medic, who tried - and failed - to comfort the bitlet.

“We will be back. I promise.”

Ratchet gave a firm nod and held the sparkling close. 

When the remaining Autobots emerged, they were blinded by the lights of the ship’s thrusters. Through the haze in their optics, they could see the unmistakable outlines of Decepticon ships in the sky, converging on this planet.

Snapping his battlemask into place, Optimus narrowed his optics and ordered the Autobots forward.

.-.-.

The Decepticons were long gone, and Optimus was grateful.

He leaned against a wall, holding his small daughter over his shoulder strut as she dozed, and watched Ratchet inspect Bumblebee’s vocalizer. Windblade stood to the yellow mech’s side, watching the medic inspect the scout with rapt optics.

“How long was he living with this broken vocalizer?” Ratchet asked, arching an optic ridge as he pulled the scanning pad away from the scout’s neck.

Bumblebee gave a one-shouldered shrug, but Windblade sighed. “It’s been, at minimum, four decacycles. That’s how long it’s been since I found him spinning circles in the desert.” 

A look passed between the young scout and the Camien that made Optimus smile. How he’d missed their joint presence in this long, long time. And he swore he could see Ratchet trying to hold back a smile of his own as the medic cleared his vocalizer. “It’s a quick fix, but one I can’t make without some intrusion,” Ratchet said, pulling a small holograph up from an access point in his wrist and showing it to Windblade and Bumblebee.

The scout leaned forward and looked where the medic gestured, putting his servo to his neck.

“When his stasis pod landed wherever it did, it looks like one of the supports holding the chip in place disengaged. It’s still there but I need to go in there and prop it back in place.”

Bumblebee nodded enthusiastically, turning to look at Windblade again and flicking his doorwings.

It seemed to be some sort of wingspeak that Windblade understood, as she smiled at him and her optics softened. Her own wings gave a brief movement, and she crossed the length of the room to join Optimus against the wall.

The sparkling stirred on his shoulder, and Optimus cooed softly at her. She blinked her wide optics at him and smiled, chirping softly.

“Andromeda?” Windblade asked, her optics bright as she leaned in slightly. Optimus turned and met her gaze, and nodded.

“Yes. Her name is Andromeda.” 

At the sound of her name, the sparkling chirred and yawned, squirming in her carrier’s grip. Windblade put her servos to her face briefly, and even with most of her face covered, Optimus was able to see the crinkling in the corners and undersides of her optics, indicating a smile. He knew what she likely wanted. Clearing his vocalizer and adjusting his hold on the sparkling so she could see the other femme, he asked, “Would you like to hold her?”

Windblade paused, and then nodded. He didn’t miss the little jump to her pedes.

Andromeda warbled in confusion when Optimus placed her in Windblade’s arms, and as Optimus stepped back, he watched Andromeda gaze up at Windblade with wonder in her optics. 

“Hi there,” Windblade said with a very big smile on her face. She canted one of her wings, a movement that captured Andromeda’s attention. The sparkling looked at the wings on the femme’s back and, after a moment, tried to mimic the motion with her own wings.

“I’m so happy to get to finally meet you. It’s been… Primus, it’s been sixty-five million stellar cycles that this has been in the making.” 

That was what Grimlock had told them all. They couldn’t wrap their processors around it, that the universe had aged sixty-five million stellar cycles without them.

Of course, they’d expected it. At most, Optimus had personally expected maybe a few thousand stellar cycles.

But sixty-five million was quite far off his guesses. At this point he had to wonder if Cybertron even lived - were the Decepticons coming to claim Earth as their own home, now that they had no planet to return to even if they wanted to?

“-best that I made it here. She’ll need someone to teach her to fly when she gets the itch.”

Optimus shook himself out of his train of thought and looked at Windblade, who now seemed to be in the process of teaching some more wingspeak to his daughter. She was of course young and likely wouldn’t remember, but it warmed his spark to see the sparkling mimic the motions as best as she could and to hear her giggle.

“When might that be?”

“Hmm?”

Optimus clarified. “When might it be that she will need to learn to fly?”

Windblade pulled a pensive look on her faceplates and wiggled her digits in front of Andromeda’s faceplates, chuckling as the sparkling grabbed at them. “It could be at any point while she’s a youngling. She’s still a sparkling so you have some time.” She pulled her digits away and gently handed the femmeling back to her carrier. “Just be on the lookout for it. You might even be able to pick up on it before she knows what’s going on.”

“How?” Optimus shifted his grip on his daughter, slightly moving his helm away when she tried to palm at his face. 

The Camien gave a half-smile. “I’ll put it this way - if she starts trying to jump off of tall ledges and looks agitated when doing so, come get me.”

There was a clattering noise on the other end of the room that prompted the three of them to look over. Ratchet had tossed his tools on the nearest table and backed away. “Alright, try it out.”

Bumblebee looked at the mech and femmes across the room, blinked, and reset his vocalizer. “Does this work?”

He went still, put his servos to his neck, and then laughed out loud as his doorwings flicked and waved on his back. The scout hopped off the berth and darted over to Windblade, sweeping her up in a crushing hug that made her choke and reset her vocalizer before she laughed and let herself be spun around, as if in a dance.

“Ah, careful!” Ratchet shouted in a panicked voice, lunging forward. “Don’t-”

Bumblebee’s back hit the edge of the berth, resulting in a pained yelp and a crash to the floor. Windblade lifted herself off of him and giggled, helping the scout up to his pedes.

Andromeda laughed and bounced up and down in her carrier’s arms, pointing at the yellow scout. Her wings flicked back and forth in a flurry, and she chirped and warbled insistently.

“Andromeda,” Optimus said in the softest, still admonishing voice he could muster. “It’s rather rude to laugh at someone’s misfortune.”

His daughter looked at him and almost looked apologetic.  _ Almost _ being the key word.

Doorwings flickered into his visual field, and Optimus looked to see that Bumblebee was in front of him and his daughter, waving excitedly at her. Andromeda stared at the scout, and then chirped and waved back with as much excitement.

Behind Bumblebee, Windblade beamed and gazed at the scout.

“Yes! It’s me! Do you remember me?”

The litany of beeps and chirps told them that she definitely remembered the yellow mech. She squealed and reached her servos out, bapping them all over his face and helm. Bumblebee laughed and grabbed both of the femme’s servos, moving them up and down in alternating manners, one servo up while the other was down. “I think you do! I remember you too. Andromeda.”

The little femme chirped and grabbed onto one of Bumblebee’s horns. At the other end of the room, they could hear Ratchet chuckling at the scene as the medic put his tools away.

A ping went off on his communication line. Grimlock needed him on the bridge for an inspection of the main console. Optimus sighed and secured his grip on the little femme in his arms, stroking one servo over one of her helm fins. “I will have to leave.” He smiled at Bumblebee and placed his free servo on the scout’s shoulder strut. “It is good to have you all back.”

As he left the medical bay, he saw what seemed to be a conversation between both of the younger bots, as Windblade communicated something with her wing movements, a sheepish grin coming over her faceplates. Bumblebee stared at her, and then lifted a doorwing as if in acknowledgement. 

.-.-.

“So when were you planning to tell me?” Bumblebee’s voice said after a klik of quiet as they walked out of the medbay and down the main corridor of the ship.

“Tell you what?” she responded

Bumblebee had his doorwings raised, and Windblade could feel that he had one of his servos stretched out in her direction. She smiled and reached back, taking his servo into hers.

“That we were… y’know, together. You didn’t tell me this whole time, not until now.” There was no malice or admonishing in his voice, as he smiled at her.

She gave him a sheepish grin and sighed. “I wanted to, Bee. Primus above, I really, really wanted to, but my focus was making sure that you recovered your memories first.” She rubbed the pad of her thumb over his servo. “I didn’t want to give you that big of a bombshell so early on.”

He paused in his tracks, prompting her to do the same. Turning to face her, he wrapped his arms around her shoulder struts and ran his digits along the edges of her wings. “Yeah yeah, I know. I think it was probably for the best to let me come to that conclusion, recover something and figure it out myself.”

“It was. And I’m also glad that you didn’t remember Optimus having had a sparkling. Primus,” she sighed and flicked her wings, “what if Shockwave had seen any of those memories when he got into your memory files? It would have made it back to Megatron and-”

“Yeah, I know. I know,” Bee said, sighing as he pulled his digits from Windblade’s back. “He would probably destroy us to try and get to her.” Then a mischevious grin came over his faceplates, one that temporarily made Windblade’s spark stop in a slight dread. “So uh… sparklings, huh?”

Oh. That. What she’d communicated with her wings in the medical bay. She hadn’t expected Bumblebee to pick up on that part of it.

“Yeah,” Windblade said, bunting her helm against his. “We’ll see if you recover it, but we discussed it back on Cybertron, before the war. And seeing you with Andromeda and play with her a bit made me realize how good you’d look with one of your - well,  _ our _ own.” She stroked his helm with one her servos, playing with one of the horns. “Do you think you’d want a sparkling?”

Bumbebee shivered under the touch and one of his doorwings twitched, but he smiled at her still, and oh how that smile was wonderful. “Yeah, I do. And, I kind of want to carry it too.”

Windblade chuckled. “So you’d definitely be up for carrying one cycle?”

“Are you kidding? Of course I would!” Bumblebee replied excitedly, his optics going bright. A slightly smug look came over his faceplates, and his doorwings flicked as he puffed out his chassis and put his servos to his hips. “I’d look adorable, don’t you think?”

Windblade smiled at him and laughed again, placing a servo over his spark. “You’d be the most adorable carrier this side of the galaxy.”

He pressed his forehelm to hers and grinned. “Let’s wait a little while though. I need to get to a hundred percent, and I think this is a little too soon to start.”

She took one of his servos in his, nodding and kissing the side of his helm. “We’ll do it on your terms, Bee. I promise.”

.-.-.

After the events of the solar cycle, there was no rest to be had. Far past the usual time that everyone on the  _ Ark _ went into recharge, Optimus stepped out of his quarters and noticed that the lights were still on and there was still some of the crew milling about in the corridors. Most of them seemed to just be stretching their legs and pedes, savoring the momentary quiet and their freedom from their stasis pods. 

A warble floated to his audio receptors, and he smiled down at the bitlet in his arms. She leaned against him, looking up at him curiously. He swore he could see minute movements of her helm fins as everyone looked at the both of them, greeting him, as he returned the greetings in kind.

Some waved at her. Andromeda waved back at them and smiled, giggling.

He stepped out of the Ark and into the night, blinking up at the stars. A cold wind met him, and he further wrapped his arms around the bitlet, increasing his internal temperature by a degree to help keep her warm. 

She reacted to the sudden spurt of heat by looking curiously at his chassis and then up at his face, but didn’t react adversely.

Of the rocks at the summit, only one was big enough and flat enough to act as a seat. He lightly brushed a servo over the surface, wiping away any stray pebbles and debris, and then sat on it. Andromeda chirped and cuddled up to his chassis, and his spark reached out to her in a gesture of comfort. She squeaked, and Optimus stroked her helm fins, smiling gently at her.

“This is my first time in quite a long time that I’ve been able to leave the confines of the  _ Ark _ ,” Optimus said haltingly. “For you… this is your first time in your life cycle.”

It still haunted him, the truth. That they’d been in stasis for so many millions of stellar cycles. Sixty-five of them, or so he’d been told. It was difficult to wrap his processor around that number - he and most of the others had only been alive for a few million stellar cycles when they’d gone into stasis, but they emerged not having aged a solar cycle.

His daughter… she should have been a fully matured Cybertronian. She should have had a long life of her own, growing, maturing, possibly bonding and finding her way in the universe. Instead she was still a sparkling, still hardly a stellar cycle old physically. She would have to wait a while longer yet.

He pressed his lipplates to her helm for a moment, letting his olfactory sensors take in her unique sparkling scent that was still there even after so long in stasis, and then lifted his helm to the stars. Pulling up a starmap in his visual field, his processor ran calculations - taking into account their unique position on this earth, the hemisphere they were on, the time, and scanning the stars.

A bright red circle blinked on the screen after a klik and then zoomed in, past a nebula and a belt of asteroids and other debris. He smiled as he recognized the star. “There,” he said softly, slowly taking one of the bitlet’s servos in his and guiding it to point at this particular star in the sky. “That is the whereabouts of Cybertron.”

The sparkling was silent for a moment, after which the moment was followed by quiet chirps. Andromeda turned her helm and blinked her optics up at her carrier. “There beyond that nebula, lies a star that gave us light and life so many billions of stellar cycles ago.” He smiled and kissed the top of his daughter’s helm, savoring the delighted chirp she gave him. “Iacon was full of light and blocked the sunrises and sunsets most of the time. However, I got out of Iacon a few times, and can say that the sunrises over the Manganese Mountains were unlike any on Cybertron, and when the sun set over the arenas in Kaon…” he closed his optics and thought back to a simpler time.

When the world was Megatron’s for the taking. When his words had an effect and he came to a match for the first time to meet this revolutionary, this fighter who gave words to the sentiments he couldn’t bring himself to realize, to verbalize. He remembered it all, how he’d sat in the stands and watched with a mixture of curiosity and horror at the sport.

How Megatron saw him, their optics meeting.

Intrigue at first sight. 

“When the sun set over the arenas in Kaon, I remember how the fading beams of light would glint off of his armor,” he continued. “That first sunset that I saw while watching your sire fight and maim his way to victory is still among the most beautiful I’ve seen.”

After a few moments, he looked down and saw his daughter gazing curiously at him. She was quiet, and looked at him with a patience she had to have gotten from him, almost as if she were waiting for him to continue speaking.

“I do wonder,” he said softly, stroking her face, smiling as she lifted both of her servos and clasped his digits in her grip, “where you would have been born if we’d stayed on Cybertron. If Megatron and I had been together, I think I would have delivered you at Ratchet’s clinic, but if we stayed there even after the separation and the start of the war… would you have been born in the caverns beneath Iacon? Or somewhere else, another place that we may have moved to to keep safe?”

Andromeda made a small noise as she let his digits go and she gripped his chassis, pulling herself up almost to her full height. She wobbled on her legs and gave a startled chirp as her unsteady limbs buckled, but Optimus caught her in time and cradled her to his spark. Beeping at him, she papped the palms of her servos on his chassis.

“Your sire may be on there, on our dying planet revolving around that luminous star. Or he could be elsewhere.” The thought gave him pause, and he felt a pit of sadness mixed with despair well up in his chassis. “I only wish I knew exactly where he was.”

The sparkling stared up at him, and he saw how her wings moved slightly, tilting in his direction. She warbled at him.

A light streaked across the sky, catching Optimus’s attention. He smiled and, seeing that his daughter had mimicked his same motion, pointed the falling star out to her.

“We referred to them as falling stars on Cybertron, though it is impossible for stars to fall. Do you know how stars meet their end, little one?” He knew she wouldn’t understand, but it helped to talk at her. “Depending on the type of star they were, they expand and shed their outer layers in their dying moments. It is a quiet death for them. For the bigger ones, the ones that must attract attention wherever they are, they explode and send shockwaves through the universe.”

His daughter went still for a moment, and then lifted both of her hands up with her digits splayed out as if to mimic an explosion, looking back at him with a big smile. 

“Yes, they explode indeed. But,” he slowly tapped both of her servos, lowering them, “they can sometimes form new stars. It is a cycle of life that repeats itself in various ways, throughout the universe.”

Andromeda warbled in response, and then turned her gaze back to the stars. Optimus followed suit, gazing at the constellations above them.

.-.-.

_ Roiling heat and fire, neverending, his old station in life decreeing that he was good for nothing but a life in the mines, where he was born from the flames and where he was destined to die. _

_ Bright blue optics looking at him from the stands, intrigue in the red mech’s optics. _

_ Hope. _

_ The promise of a future together on an equal Cybertron. _

_ Fading cry of a sparkling that would never come to being, and all hope was lost like his lost beloved. _

Megatron opened his optics to the bleak dark of his quarters and sat up in berth, groaning and hissing through his dentae as his joints protested the movement.

And as with each wake-up cycle, he looked to his side in the wide, all-encompassing berth and felt his spark sink and fracture further with longing, grief, as there was no warm, red frame beside him. His spark felt fit to collapse into itself the more that he looked at that empty space, hollowing him out. How he wanted and waited. Even now, he still had faint hope.

But his beloved was dead. The data clerk was dead, replaced by someone he didn’t recognize.

A faint twinge in his spark shook him out of his self-pitying stupor, and he pressed a servo over his chassis, narrowing his optics at the dark as he ran a rudimentary self-diagnostic scan.

The aching in his spark was back. It had been so, so very long and for a while after it’d first gone away, he’d almost missed it. It had been a consistent presence for quite some time, and his medics had been at a loss to explain why it had disappeared without an explanation, much as they’d been perplexed on why it had even appeared in the first place.

He could make a guess, but guesses were not his field of preference. It had something to do with Optimus. That he was absolutely certain of.

The name made him almost entirely spiteful, angry. The name represented a cruel death of a Cybertron that he tried to bring peace and harmony to, balance. The name was representative of all his hopes and dreams being crushed when the AllSpark had been tossed into a space bridge to parts unknown in this vast, still-growing, unforgiving universes.

Yet, the name brought him a sort of comfort. It was always present and persistent, something familiar for him to hold onto. It was his first… and frankly, only love.

How he’d never loved one the same way he’d loved him. And he doubted that he ever would.

That was what made the betrayal so visceral and so real. There had been plans that they’d made, the both of them bonding and fighting this revolution together, at each other’s side, a sparkling at their pedes. They could give a sparkling a universe where they didn’t know class differences that were enforced by a governing body, a universe where they could aspire to be whatever they wanted to be, knowing they had the full support of their creators behind them. 

Yes, the name Optimus still made him angry, for it represented a betrayal of the cause he once claimed to believe in.

And on the different side of that token, it represented love. It represented blue optics gazing lovingly at him as they held onto his every word, believed something that no middle or higher-class bot seemed to believe at the time - that they were all equal.

Megatron got off of his berth, his pedes sending signals of the twinges of pain to his processor, and looked out of the vast window on the ship, at the stars. The starmap that he pulled up into his visual field did the calculations for him, and after a klik it found the one thing he looked for every solar cycle.

Cybertron.

He raised a servo to the window and placed it, flat, against the glass as he stared at the star that gave light to his homeworld. It was a faint pinprick in the sky, the shine of it almost overtaken by the stars next to it, but the sight gave him comfort. Who knew how much longer he would have until they could no longer tell where it was?

Wherever Optimus was, in this vast and cold universe that shone by light from stars indistinguishable from the others, he had to wonder if the Prime was looking up at the same set of stars that he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who kept following this fic, and to everyone who commented and let me know what they liked/asked questions/etc. 
> 
> I have intentions of writing a sequel; however, I do not intend on writing it until after season two of _Cyberverse_ has aired and hopefully answers a few questions I have. I'm also beginning graduate school on August 26th, so with my studies alongside working full-time, I don't anticipate having much time for fanfic. I'll try a few one-shots here and there, but no promises will be made.
> 
> If anyone wants to make sure I'm still kicking, I'm mostly active on my Twitter account as of late. The link to my Twitter can be found through my Carrd account that is linked through my user profile.
> 
> Again, my thanks to those that kept reading and commenting~


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